{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/school-psychologists/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "School Psychologists",
    "soc_code": "19-3034",
    "category": "Science",
    "us_employment": 63940,
    "median_annual_wage": 95990
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 69,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 12,
    "embodiment": 12,
    "liability_shield": 14,
    "trust_premium": 15,
    "judgment_accountability": 16
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Scoring a WISC-V or WIAT protocol, generating the boilerplate of a psychoeducational report, and tracking 60-day evaluation timelines are already substantially machine-doable, which pulls it down from the high teens, but standardized administration with a squirming first-grader, classroom observations of function, and threat/risk assessment interviews still cannot be delegated to software — hence mixed rather than resistant.",
    "embodiment": "You are physically in buildings — pushing a testing cart between three campuses, sitting on the floor with a kindergartener for a DAS, watching recess behavior, and physically responding when a student is in crisis in a hallway — but it is a school, not a rooftop or a roadside, so the environment is uncontrolled in behavior rather than in hazard, which is what puts this at 12 and not 17.",
    "liability_shield": "State education agencies require a school psychologist credential (or licensure) for a psychoeducational evaluation to be legally valid under IDEA, and your name on that eligibility report is what a district defends in due process; the 14 rather than 18 reflects that you practice inside a district's legal umbrella and typically cannot bill independently or prescribe.",
    "trust_premium": "Whether a wary parent consents to evaluation, whether a teacher actually implements the behavior plan, and whether a suicidal 14-year-old tells you the truth all rest on you specifically being known in that building — just short of the top band because much of your caseload turns over annually and many parents meet you only at the eligibility meeting.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a child's profile meets SLD or emotional disturbance criteria on data that rarely aligns cleanly, whether a threat is transient or substantive, and when to break confidentiality under duty-to-warn — calls with no algorithm behind them, made under IDEA and FERPA, that get litigated."
  },
  "rationale": "The heavy paperwork layer — scoring protocols, drafting psychoeducational evaluation reports, summarizing observation notes, tracking IEP compliance deadlines — is exactly what language models do well, and that is a real share of the week. But the core act of sitting with an 8-year-old to administer a WISC, watching a child in a classroom, running a crisis response after a suicide threat, and defending an eligibility determination in a contentious IEP meeting requires a credentialed human in the room who owns the call. State credentialing (NASP/NCSP or state licensure) makes the signature on an evaluation legally non-transferable.",
  "outlook": "Report-writing time collapses and caseloads per psychologist rise, but districts will still need credentialed humans to test children, sit in IEP meetings, and answer for eligibility decisions.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State education agencies or IDEA guidance explicitly requiring that any AI-assisted component of a psychoeducational evaluation be disclosed in the report and personally attested to by the credentialed school psychologist — mirroring the disclosure/attestation language already appearing in state board rules for telehealth and in APA's 2025 guidance on AI in psychological assessment. Also: test publishers (Pearson, WPS, Riverside) writing licensing terms that void score validity if protocols are administered or interpreted without a qualified examiner (Level C qualification already does much of this).",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Due-process hearing decisions and OCR findings that hold the district's psychologist personally responsible for eligibility determinations where AI-generated report language was found to have produced an inadequate evaluation — making the named signer the accountable party in litigation rather than the vendor. Contentious eligibility and manifestation-determination reviews are already the pressure point.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Genuine two-tier occupation: if report drafting, protocol scoring and IEP deadline tracking are absorbed by district-adopted platforms, the residual week concentrates into standardized test administration with rapport-dependent children, classroom observation, threat and suicide risk assessment, and adversarial IEP meetings — none of which current systems perform. Watch for districts raising caseload counts while cutting clerical support, which is the visible signature of this shift.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Parent advocacy groups and special-education attorneys demanding independent educational evaluations (IEEs, already a parent right under IDEA at district expense) specifically on the grounds that the district evaluation was AI-generated. This creates paid demand for a named human evaluator rather than a cheaper automated one.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "No realistic route above current level beyond what already exists — in-person test administration and classroom observation are already counted. Any rise would come from mandates for in-person rather than tele-assessment delivery, e.g. state rules restricting remote WISC administration, which some state boards tightened post-2021.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Shortage is the dominant force here, not displacement: NASP reports roughly a 1:1,065 ratio against its recommended 1:500, so tools that clear paperwork are likely absorbed as caseload relief rather than headcount cuts. The realistic ceiling is mid-to-high 70s; the residual risk is not the psychologist being replaced but districts substituting lower-credentialed staff plus software for portions of the assessment role, which would erode the liability shield rather than strengthen it."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      69,
      70
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "SAFE"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 57110,
        "wage": 78780
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 60250,
        "wage": 81500
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 62790,
        "wage": 84940
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 63830,
        "wage": 86930
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 63940,
        "wage": 95990
      }
    ],
    "from": 2021,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 12,
    "comparable_from": 2021,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}