ALUMS MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Jamal Splane
School Psychologist
Moreland School District, San José, California

Splane helping students with a math problem

Splane in his office at Latimer Elementary School in San José

Most people think of school psychologists as test-givers, specialists who evaluate students’ learning difficulties. Jamal Splane says this is an important part of his job, but he actually spends more time in a consulting role. “I work closely with teachers, nurses, parents, and administrators, advising them on a variety of matters, from a death in the family to hyperactivity,” he says. Even while we talk in his office in Latimer Elementary School in San José, a teacher calls with an urgent question about whether she could give a special education student a particular assessment. Messages are piling up for him as we talk.

Splane says his education in UC Berkeley’s School Psychology Program prepared him for the consulting mode. “Not having practiced, we wondered as students why we were doing so much training in this area,” he said. “I’ve discovered consultation is actually the critical piece that makes the difference for the kids. School psychologists are often not the direct service providers. We give tools to teachers to help them work with kids.”

Splane emphasizes an approach he learned at Cal that looks at each student’s needs. “I’ve worked in schools for ten years,” said Splane, “but I’ve never once met a learning disability or hyperactivity. What I’ve met are children with these tendencies. We forget that they are children with needs.”

Recently Splane was faced with an elementary school teacher’s frustration with a boy who couldn’t sit still during the circle time that begins the school day.

“I constantly have to redirect him,’ the teacher told me,” says Splane. Splane’s approach was to brainstorm with that teacher to find a solution. “I’m asking myself, what are the student’s needs at this point? How would the student respond if he were to lead the group?” Splane admits that he doesn’t know if his ideas are going to work, but he sees his role as shifting the perspective to open up new ideas.

With only eight schools, Moreland demonstrates that a district doesn’t have to be large to have an effective special education program. At Latimer Elementary, there are inclusion students as well as three rooms devoted to special day classes.

Splane jokes with the special day kids, noticing a student’s new sneakers—“I like your Jordans. Definitely old school.” He takes aside a group of three boys, grades 1–3, who have difficulty focusing on the subject matter. He works with them on how to solve a word problem in math. With three other adults in the classroom—a teacher and two aides—Splane has the ability to zero in on these three students and give them continual reinforcement for sustained attention and for sitting still. When they get a right answer he gives them high fives and their faces light up. “You guys are on fire!” he encourages them.

The program at Latimer also includes a classroom for children who have shown violent behavior. That room has nine students and four full-time adults— a teacher, a behavioral specialist, a counselor, and an aide. The classroom is so unique that a neighboring district also sends children there.

Splane has found that a school psychologist has to make tough calls. “I have to help decide if a student with special needs should go in an inclusion classroom or a special day class.” How does he work with parents and other professionals to assist in that choice? “In the mainstream curriculum, there is a clock that starts in September and keeps moving forward till the end of the school year. The team who work with the parents to make the decision has to keep in mind that you can alter the pace of the curriculum somewhat, but when the child’s needs are extreme, you need a completely different clock.”

Splane’s path to school psychology was not a straight line. He grew up in the East Bay and attended community college and Hayward State with the goal of becoming a professional athlete. “I was playing quarterback on the football team and planning on pitching for the baseball team when I tore my rotator cuff,” he recalls. “It was a career-ending injury. I dropped out of college because my purpose in being there was to go on in sports.” Splane decided to finish what he’d begun by taking courses at San José State. The assistant director of the McNair Scholars Program on campus encouraged him to apply to the School Psychology Program at UC Berkeley, since Splane was a psychology major with an interest in community work related to education. He didn’t really know if he’d be accepted, or if he’d go if Berkeley took him.

“The day I got the acceptance letter was the day I wanted to do something with it,” he says. “It took me a while, though, to feel I belonged at Berkeley.” He was sitting in classes with students with degrees from top undergraduate colleges who already knew the vocabulary and the literature. “Critical to that journey of getting through a graduate program,” he says, “is to have someone showing consistent interest in your progress.” Splane credits Professor Herb Simons with mentoring him through the ups and downs of his Cal education.

“I’ve felt like I haven’t fit in before,” says Splane, “so now I look for the kids who look like they don’t feel they belong in school. My goal is to instill in them that sense of belonging.”

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