About Us

The Burke County Student Services Department provides Psychological Services and Special Education Services for students with disabilities.

The Burke County School System  provides over 75 highly trained teachers and paraprofessionals to serve the needs of our students with disabilities. Services range from consultation where the student is only monitored by their case manager and spends the entire day in a general education classroom to self-contained / alternate site services for those needing intensive assistance. Most of our students are served in "inclusion" classrooms. These are general education classrooms with a second teacher or paraprofessional who provides additional instruction or co-teaching for the whole class, in small groups or on an individual basis for the disabled student. We also have outside agency personnel to serve students with physical, motor, or sensory needs. For eligible, identified students, services can begin as early as age 3 and can continue until graduation if needed. The primary goal of this department is to provide assistance to students in becoming independent learners and ultimately fully functioning adults.


Wayne A. Hickman, Ed.D., Student Services Director

  • 19 years of experience in education
  • Former Middle School Teacher, Assistant Principal (Elementary, Middle, and High School levels), and High School Principal

 

  Duties Include:

  • Administration of the Special Education Program and policy development
  • Maintenance of records and due process proceedures
  • Special education budget
  • Coordination of procedures for identification, referral, testing, placement, dismissal, promotion, and transfer of special education students
  • Preparation of reports
  • Assistance in recruitment of special education teachers
  • Supervision of School Psychologists and SST/RTI/EIS fund Coordinator
  • SemsTracker system administrator

Chiquida B. Brinson, Ed.S., Associate School Psychologist

  •  9 years of experience in education

Ashlee E. Earley, Ed.S., Associate School Psychologist

  • 2 years of experience in education

Duties of School Psycholgists include:

The primary job function of a school psychologist is to facilitate individual students as well as school populations in making academic progress and maintaining appropriate social/emotional adjustments to the various school environments. This is accomplished through consultative services with teachers, administrators and parents, direct services to students, assisting administrators in program assessment, training school personnel and providing information to parents as appropriate.

  • Consults with school personnel and/or parents
  • Consults with students on a short-term basis within the framework of crisis intervention, assessment and/or the agency linkage process
  • Provides comprehensive psychological/educational evaluations and formal reports relating to learning, social/emotional, behavioral and related problems within the school setting
  • Participates in various committee meetings, such as risk assessment meetings, agency meetings and special education eligibility and/or IEP meetings
  • Provides technical assistance and support relevant to implementation, refinement and maintenance of the Response to Intervention model, Student Support Teams (SST) and related school initiatives.
  • Provides support through inservice and training sessions on a variety of topics

Pam Lambert, Student Services Secretary

  •  Over 24 years in education at the school and central office level

Duties Include:

  • Semstracker administrator
  • Office Manager
  • File management
  • Transfer of records
  • Ordering/purchasing for special education materials