Since the school year has started, students are bound to feel the overwhelming stress of school work. With students’ fragile and developing brains, they can only deal with so much stress until they find unhealthy ways to cope with it. To help students find their way through the high school jungle, school psychologist Nicole Jackson is here to help. 

The goal of hiring psychologists at schools is to work on sustaining a healthy learning environment for youth. When Jackson was in high school, she said that she wished she could have helped with the way people behaved toward others. 

“I had a lot of friends who were part of the LGBT community, and I saw how a lot of them were treated, and trying to help them work through that was hard when I was in high school,” Jackson said.  “Also just seeing how different people were just treated was difficult, and now I’m in a position where I can actually help them”

Jackson explored different areas around psychology before she decided to become a school psychologist.  

“I had just graduated from college, and I was working as an instructional aide, and I got to see how the school psychologists worked with the students there,” Jackson said. “It’s the most rewarding, and you can learn the most from other students.”

Throughout her career, Jackson has found that while working with students in a school setting, she enjoys doing investigative work to help with students’ personal issues the most. 

“I think working with students one-on-one is the best part, especially when they make so much growth,” Jackson said. “[I like] trying to figure out what their challenges are and why and how we can help them.”

From her own high school experience as well as years of helping with other teens, Jackson works on understanding as well as empathizing with students.

“I would say, a lot of them are just trying to figure themselves out and what they want to do in life and how they want to develop their own identity,” Jackson said. “Some of the most challenging cases were hard at the time, but they made me reflect on my own skills and my own weaknesses and figure out how to improve on that moving forward.”

Located in the administration office, Jackson is available for appointments during break, lunch and after school if any students need assistance, guidance, or someone to talk to.