Best School Psychology Programs in Delaware Rankings for 2026

Delaware keeps school psychology certification with the Department of Education, not with a separate psychology licensing board. That is the credential that lets you work in Delaware public schools, and here is the actual sequence. First, you finish a school psychology program approved by NASP or APA at the specialist level, meaning a master's plus an Educational Specialist (EdS) degree or a doctorate in school psychology. The University of Delaware program meets this directly, and so does any NASP-approved program in Maryland, Pennsylvania, or online. Second, you complete the field requirement: at minimum 60 graduate semester hours and a 1,200-hour internship, with at least 600 of those hours earned in a school setting. That internship hour split is the NASP national standard, and Delaware follows it.

Third, you pass the Praxis School Psychologist exam (test code #5403). The widely used qualifying score is 155, which is also the score NASP requires for the NCSP, so most Delaware candidates aim for 155 and hit both targets at once. Delaware also accepts a couple of shortcuts on the front end: if you already hold the NCSP, or a valid school psychology certificate from another state's department of education, the state will credential you on that basis. That out-of-state acceptance is exactly why training in Maryland or Pennsylvania works fine if Delaware's one in-state seat does not pan out. Worth knowing: Delaware does not offer an emergency certificate for school psychologists, so you cannot start working before you finish the program and the exam.

None of this lets you hang a shingle and see private clients. For that you need a separate, doctoral-level credential. The Delaware Board of Examiners of Psychologists issues the Licensed Psychologist credential, and it requires a doctoral degree in psychology, a year of supervised postdoctoral work, and a passing score on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP). A specialist-level EdS does not qualify, which is one practical reason some Delaware students choose the University of Delaware PhD track instead of stopping at the EdS.

Delaware pays school psychologists right at the national median, no more and no less. BLS May 2025 data puts the Delaware median at $95,990, which happens to match the U.S. median for school psychologists to the dollar. The premium versus the rest of the country is zero. The middle of the range runs from about $76,340 at the 25th percentile to $104,240 at the 75th, the bottom 10% earn around $68,270, and the top 10% clear $124,830. Those are solid numbers for a small state, and because most Delaware school psychologists are paid on a district salary schedule, your pay climbs predictably with years of service and graduate credits rather than swinging with the market.

The metro picture is narrow because Delaware is narrow. The Dover, DE metro, anchored by Kent County and the state capital, shows a median of $80,280 across about 50 school psychologists, which sits below the statewide figure, while the Sussex County nonmetro area in the south reports a median near $76,190 across roughly 40 jobs. The higher-paying work is concentrated in northern New Castle County, in and around Wilmington, which BLS folds into the multi-state Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington region rather than reporting it as Delaware-only. That regional area runs a median near $82,190. So the honest read on geography: the salary schedule does not vary wildly across a state this size, but northern Delaware districts tend to pay a bit more than Kent or Sussex, and they hold most of the jobs.

In a one-program state, choosing is less about ranking programs against each other and more about deciding where to study at all. Here is how the realistic options sort out.