Thanks aeh - I will reiterate your point that the above is average, not universal trend, and psychologists would not be considered in that discussion.
That's an interesting observation re: school psychologist coverage ratios. I seem to remember you saying the upper limit on completing evaluations in federal US law is 60 days, right? With the Canadian schools in the board you scanned running at one fifth capacity, that would translate into a 10 month turnaround equivalent in Canada, plus the wait time on the front end to be placed on an evaluation list. That seems just a touch light, so I suspect our school psychologists are not, on average, working full time case loads in the schools, and I would be *very* interested what the total count of school psychs is on an FTE basis in school settings.
I just checked the public register of active school psychologists in Ontario, and you'll be pleased to know your back of the envelope numbers for Toronto are pretty accurate when extrapolated across the province. There are 1,009 active licensed school psychologists for a total K-12 aged population of 2.04MM students, for an average of 2,022 students per school psych. The data I have don't show the split by in-school vs in private practice, but I suspect the ratios in public schools will be closer to your estimates once the private practices are netted out.
The average school psychologist salary I'm finding in the province brings in one quarter the average private billable rate per hour recommended by the provincial college of psychologists. I imagine there is a LOT of moonlighting and incentive to switch to private practice...
As employees of the boards, I suspect the full-time school psychologists would also be unionized here. I know that, at least for secondary school psychologists, they are grouped in the secondary school teachers' union in Ontario.
