Jessica Smith is the new psychologist at McIntosh High School. Smith also works with students that have special needs. Smith graduated from high school as valedictorian, then went on to Emory University and Georgia State University. Though Smith works at McIntosh High School as a school psychologist now, she has worked a range of jobs. 

“When I was at Emory, I worked at the Emory Autism Center, so I got to work with students with autism. Then, I started looking into how I could still work with that age of children. There was a great need for school psychologists, so coming here seemed like a good way to reach a whole population of students,” Smith said.

Smith also has to take on the challenge of working at two schools. She balances working at Crabapple Lane Elementary and McIntosh High School.

“You have to have a lot of organization, and you learn more as you go from when you first start. But I like getting to work with a big age group. I get to have an elementary school and a high school. Sometimes I get in the feeder pattern too. I get to work with this student in elementary school, and then I get to see how far they’ve come in high school,” Smith said.

Smith’s days are typically packed with work as her job requires a lot of multitasking.

“Usually, I’ll have a meeting in the morning on a specific student. I’ll assess the student and then we’ll meet to talk about the assessment. We’ll talk about what interventions and resources that student needs. Sometimes in the afternoons, we’ll be writing the results of those assessments. Also, sometime in the day I’ll be consulting,” Smith said.

Early on in life, Smith had known that she wanted to be a psychologist.

“It was probably around middle school that I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I think history class was what peaked my interest. You see how human behavior has been in the past, and it was just interesting to see how that worked,” Smith said.