In joining the APA or the NASP, members agree to abide by that association’s ethical principles. Additionally, psychologists who are members of the National School Psychologist Certification System are obligated to abide by the NASP’s Code of Ethics. We believe school psychology practitioners should be thoroughly familiar with the NASP’s (2020) Principles for Professional Ethics and the APA’s (2017b) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, whether they are members of a professional association or not. A psychologist with a broad knowledge base of ethical principles will likely be better prepared to make sound choices when ethically challenging situations arise. Furthermore, regardless of association membership or level of training, trainees and practitioners may be expected to know and abide by both the APA and NASP ethics codes in their work setting (Flanagan et al., 2005).

The NASP’s Principles for Professional Ethics was first adopted in 1974 and revised in 1984, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2010, and 2020 (see Jacob et al., 2021, for a brief history of the early development of the code). The 2020 Principles for Professional Ethics is reprinted in Appendix A.⁴ The NASP’s code of ethics focuses on the special challenges of school-based practice. For the purposes of the code, school-based practice is defined as “the provision of school psychological services under the authority of a state, regional, or local educational agency” whether the school psychologist “is an employee of the schools or contracted by the schools on a per case or consultative basis” (NASP, 2020, Definition of Terms as Used in the Principles for Professional Ethics, p. 41⁵ ).