Project Raise partnership brings mental health providers to rural schools

Project Raise partnership brings mental health providers to rural schools

Partnership between inaugural school psychology program and the state will help counteract a steep shortage of school psychologists in rural areas of Tennessee.

By Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078 | 01/13/2026

Having been raised and worked her entire educational career in Warren County Tennessee, Courtney Reed-Myers knows both the advantages and disadvantages of teaching in a rural school district.

"I like being a part of my community here. It's where I was raised. A lot of the teachers who were here when I started working here were teachers that I had in school," said Reed-Myers, now the Individual Education Plan (IEP) coordinator at Warren County Middle School in McMinnville.

"I prefer to be here and… help the students who are hopefully going to be here in the future, to watch them grow into productive citizens."

But she can also see the need for more resources in her school district, which like many in Tennessee is understaffed in the school psychologist's office. The middle school's psychologist covers two additional schools and is only at the middle school two days a week.

"It can get sticky… he is super-flexible, and he tries to do what he can, but if he is at another school, it does put a strain on him," said Reed-Myers.

That situation is not abnormal in Tennessee, said Cindy Minnis, director of Lipscomb's new Education Specialist (Ed.S.) degree program in school psychology, which includes candidates, including Reed-Myers, who will intern in 12 rural counties in the state and commit to practice in a Tennessee rural district for at least one year through a partnership with a program called Project Raise.

For students with learning disabilities or social emotional challenges and needs, in order to qualify for individualized services and supports, they must go through an evaluation and eligibility process with a school psychologist, said Minnis. "Most of the qualifying disability categories within our state are psychologically based disabilities, and so state standards require involvement of a school psychologist," she said.

However, the role of a school psychologist could be much broader, serving their schools through problem-solving, prevention and intervention, but "the shortage across the state means that most school psychologists don't get to do much beyond testing. They can't really contribute with counseling, mental health interventions or establishing school-wide systems that could be really helpful to students and school districts," said Minnis.

To help alleviate that problem Tennessee received an almost $14 million grant in 2023 from the School Based Mental Health Services Grant program of the U.S. Department of Education. The grant-funded Project RAISE (Rural Access to Interventions in School Environments) provides up to $60,000 in stipends for school psychology and school counseling candidates during their full-time internship, a requirement to become licensed.

According to April Ebbinger, Tennessee's director of psychological and behavioral supports, in fall 2022, 44.6 percent of Tennessee's local education agencies did not have a full-time school psychologist. In December 2025, Project Raise had placed 107 interns and had positively impacted 64 school districts.

Upon graduation, Project Raise participants make a two-year commitment to practice in Tennessee schools, including one year in a rural district.

To achieve its goal to recruit, place and retain school-based mental health providers across 42 Tennessee districts over five years, Project Raise works through universities with school psychology and counseling programs to coordinate the internship placements for the participants receiving stipends.

Lipscomb became an approved university partner, the only online program in Tennessee, through Ebbinger, who was on the steering committee to develop Lipscomb's school psychology program and brought Project Raise to the attention of College of Education faculty.

In its 26-person inaugural cohort, the school psychology program has candidates preparing for internships in 12 rural counties this year. In addition, Lipscomb's graduate program in school counseling also has two Project Raise participants in its current cohorts.

The school psychology program is a three-year program with two years of online synchronous instruction and spring-semester in-person intensives on the Lipscomb campus. Lipscomb's candidates will begin their Project Raise internships in 2027.

"Students have a fantastic opportunity from this," said Megan Parker Peters, College of Education associate dean and a licensed school psychologist who was instrumental in the development of Lipscomb's program. "In school psychology programs, similar to student teaching, you have to secure your internship. This program includes your internship as well, and it's already planned and paid for."

That opportunity was certainly the draw for Reed-Myers, who wanted to continue to work during her studies. She and program officials are currently working to arrange her 2027 internship in Warren County Schools.

Reed-Myers had already considered going into school psychology during her graduate studies a couple of years ago at the suggestion of her mentor Candice (Golden) Willmore (BA '89, Ed.D. '18), the director of special education in Warren County schools, but had decided against it due to difficult logistics with a family and full-time job. But when Willmore told her in January 2025 about the combination of Lipscomb's online program and the Project Raise internship, Reed-Myers changed her mind.

"If you want to continue bettering your skills, continuing your education just becomes something you have to accept, but it is definitely a blessing when you don't have to focus on the financial part," said Reed-Myers.

While Lipscomb's courses are synchronous, meaning she has to be online with her cohort at specific times, she likes that structure because she gets to know her classmates and professors better than she did through asynchronous online learning at Arkansas State University for her master's.

"It's been such a better experience to do it through Zoom, because you really have someone guiding you," she said. "I have two excellent professors who have so much knowledge in the field. It's been great to hear their instruction and get to interact with other students. You kind of have a community that is being built and after we graduate we have people we can collaborate with and interact with."

"I think one of my favorite things about teaching the classes is their ability to take their experiences from all the places where they are working currently and build them into the class discussions," said Minnis. "It makes for really rich conversation."

With only a handful of school psychology programs in the state, earning the degree in-person is not feasible for people who are already working and have families, said Minnis, but there are "some districts who don't have a school psychologist or access to one, and so this program is really going to be a game changer, I think."