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NASP Communiqué, Vol. 32, #8
June 2004

Minority Recruitment Task Force a Success!

By Fulvia Franco, NCSP & Tonika Duren Green

The Minority Recruitment Task Force was established by Dan Miller, NASP President, as a presidential initiative to increase minority members in NASP. This Task Force addresses the NASP Strategic Plan goal that NASP will work actively toward addressing diversity in all aspects of the Association. To further this goal, the Task Force created a Minority Recruitment Survey in hopes of obtaining qualitative and quantitative data on effective recruitment strategies, reasons why school psychologists of color are not joining NASP, and ways to increase minority representation in NASP.

NASP-Sponsored Training

To reach these potential members, NASP sponsored 4 trainings this year in areas that employ large numbers of minority school psychologists; training was provided by members of the Minority Recruitment Task Force. In addition, Dan Miller was asked to give a keynote presentation in the Chicago Public Schools in April.

The first training was held in Washington, DC with 80 participants.  Jim Lennon, Delegate from New York, provided a presentation on the issue of LD classification and the discrepancy model.  Twenty participants joined NASP as new members at this training. The second training was held in Jersey City, New Jersey with 80 participants.  Dr. Sam Ortiz, Associate Professor at St. John's University in New York City, provided a presentation that addressed comprehensive assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse students.  Thirty participants joined NASP as new members at this training and one individual renewed early. The third training was held in Atlanta, GA.  Eighty participants attended this meeting and, of this number, 18 were not members.  Twelve participants joined NASP as new members at this training.  An additional training was scheduled in Los Angeles in May and recruitment and survey data for that training were not yet available at press time.

As a result of Dan Miller's keynote presentation for the Chicago Public Schools, 30 new members joined NASP, one person renewed early, and one transitional member also joined.

Survey Results: Who We Touched and Targeted

Eighty percent of the workshop participants were women and 20% were men. Ethnicity was distributed as follows: 46% White, 39% African American, 10% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Asian American, .5% Filipino, .5% Palestinian; 1% Biracial and 1% Multiracial. The majority of the bilingual participants were Spanish-speaking school psychologists (15%). Participates also reported language fluency in French, Vietnamese, Portuguese, German, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Albanian and African Dialect.

About 54% percent were current members of NASP (White 28.2%, African Americans 17.5%, Latino 5.1%, Filipino .6%, Palestinian .6%, Biracial 1.1%, Multiracial .6%). Most training programs encouraged members to join (44%); this was true across ethnic groups.

Non-members reported that they are not members of NASP for these reasons:

  • Member of state association (54.6%)
  • NASP is too expensive (15.1%)
  • NASP does not represent me (1.6%)
  • NASP membership offers are not appealing (2.2%)
  • Disagree with some position statements
  • NASP’s lack of interest in multicultural populations
  • Lack of time to attend conferences
  • No place to store journals

When asked what NASP could do to recruit more minority school psychologists, participants reported that NASP should:

  • Spread the word
  • Have minority SP speak at schools
  • Revisit school psychology training programs’ admission process
  • More workshops like this one
  • Recruit in urban areas
  • Target undergrad population
  • Lower membership costs or offer a variety of membership options
  • Publicity in minority-focused journals
  • Incorporate into conference
  • Develop services to support minority school psychologists
  • Support more minority interests
  • Tap into the community

In summary, a total of 92 new members joined NASP as a result of this recruiting effort as of the end of April.  Lee Huff, NASP President-Elect, has recognized the significant contributions achieved by this task force and established a commitment to continue support of these recruiting efforts. The goals and activities of the Minority Recruitment Task Force will be incorporated into and carried out by the Multicultural Affairs Work Group for 2004-05. 

© 2004, National Association of School Psychologists. Fulvia Franco, PhD, NCSP, serves as the Chair of the Minority Recruitment Task Force and is President-Elect of the Utah Association of School Psychologists. She is a Program Specialist-Guidance and coordinator for the Jordan Family Education Center (JFEC), a parent education resource center in the Jordan School District in Sandy, Utah. Tonika Duren Green, PhD, is Co-Chair of the NASP Multicultural Affairs Committee and an Assistant Professor at San Diego State University in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology.  Special recognition and thanks to the Multicultural Recruitment Task Force Members: Dan Miller, Robin Satchell, Jennifer Kitson and Antonio Hughes.