Expert Instruction Template

00:00:05 Speaker: Welcome back to Expert Instruction, the Teach by Design podcast, where we dive deeper into the research surrounding student behavior by talking with the people, implementing these practices where they work and with the students they support. I'm Megan Cave, I'm Danielle Triplett and joining us. We have someone extra here. We have a special guest. Yay, it's Marlena. Welcome, Mara. Yeah. So Mara is she's on my team. She's a member of the PBIs apps training team. She joined us. I keep teasing her because she'll say, I just joined, but I'm like, it feels like you've been here way longer than you have. Like, you've just jumped right in. I'm learning things from you and and and I'm just really excited you're here. Yeah. So yeah, she's a member of our training team. And really she's been supporting schools though for a long time. Um, she's been doing this work for over twenty five years. Um, experience in public education. You began as a special education teacher and then went on to serve your local school, uh, school district as a student services coach supporting K through twelve schools, implementing MTSs systems and practices. And you've really focused on, um, meeting social, emotional, behavioral and mental health needs of students. You're really, we hear that you're passionate about helping educators, students and families and their community partners create learning environments where every kid knows they belong and has the support to achieve their goals. And on our training team, you. Woo! She's amazing. But on the training team, I mean, in addition to doing lots of things and just, um, helping out in, in all the ways you're really, um, taking on the ice whisk component so that individual student wide information system and helping us navigate and better understand tier three. So we were excited to have you join us today and bring along an excellent, excellent guest. Yes. That you met. Yes. So, Mara, tell everybody why tier three matters to you when we're talking about MTS, right? I always joke that once you're a special education teacher, you're always a special education teacher, right? Like you just never lose that, that passion and that mindset. Um, but I'm also a special education teacher that believes that it would be really great if we didn't have special education, right? And that, um, the more we can build our universal supports and our targeted interventions to really meet the needs of all students, then the less we need to single students out and, you know, put them somewhere else, right? Everyone is a member of our school wide community and deserves to receive the same supports that we offer, but also, um, some more individualized supports when they need it. Yeah, yeah. And we all, which we all need extra supports in our lives from time to time. Like that's yes, normal. And so when we started to talk about when we knew that we were going to talk about tier three, the data that we use to inform the decisions that we make for what's best for kids. I was like, I got to talk to Mara because this is not my wheelhouse, it's hers. And so as soon as I talked to Mara, she was like I said, who am I? Who are we talking to in our we need a guest. And she said immediately, she was like, oh, this person. Yeah, I know a gal and her name is Jess Olsen. And so Jess is also joining us today in our episode. She's a board certified behavior analyst, which I am learning acronyms still to this day. And that acronym is B c b A and she's a doctoral student in special education at the University of Utah with another podcast guest of ours, fan favorite Kathleen Strickland Cohen. Um, who is her? What would be her advisor? Probably her advisor. Yeah, yeah. Her, um, Jess's work centers on helping schools implement function based individualized behavior support that aligns really well with PBIs. And there's a, she has a clear focus on, uh, teacher implementation fidelity. She wants to do what's best for kids, but she also tells us she wants to do what's best for teachers. Um, she spent several years in a district as their bcba, partnering with educators and school teams across general and special education to design behavior support plans, to coach implementation, and to build sustainable routines that fit the realities of busy classrooms. Again, she's focused on what's good for for teachers. Um, and that's her story. And her experiences in that district are what you guys are going to hear about today in our episode. Um, Mara, you tell us just the tiniest bit about how you heard Jess in and give this same presentation essentially, um, at a conference in Chicago. Yeah. Yes, yes. So October. Yeah. You were in Chicago for the leadership forum and I was focused on all things tier three. Yes, of course, the new member to the training team and went to her presentation. She presented with Kathleen and they their presentation was really about tiers within tier three, and it was just a presentation where I walked away from it thinking, I wish I had had this information five years ago, ten years ago. Um, just lots of aha moments for me, reflecting on experiences that I had had supporting a district that was trying to make behavior support plans, not a special education only practice. And she, and she's just very real, right? Like she's very easy to talk to and passionate about what she does. And that idea of really kind of, um, meeting teachers where they are and bringing that lens of wanting to support the teachers and the process to just really, really spoke to me. So I was really excited to introduce you all to her. Yeah. And it's really what we've been trying to do at this point. We started last month in February with Doctor Chris Borgmeyer talking about the way that functional behavioral assessment is an important part of developing behavior support plans. Um, but and there's a way to do it that makes it, um, more efficient, um, easier to do. For those of us who, um, are maybe not coming at this from a special education background, um, and so this idea of bringing, I love that Jess brings to this conversation the idea around tier three does not have to live and breathe only in the realm of special education that the, the components of tier three supports are good for students across the board. And, uh, and so I really loved that, that she brings that to this work too, that she's really kind of pushing that, that message forward. I loved her just talking about building on what already exists. I feel like it came up in multiple questions, you know, whether it was talking about working with teachers or working with school teams or how to scale it up within a district. That was a theme that I heard her say over and over again. I think you guys are gonna appreciate, um, Jess's experience. Listen in. See if there's some little nugget of information you can take and implement where you work to, uh, enjoy.

00:07:23 Speaker: well, Jess and Mara, thanks so much for joining us today on this very special episode. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm super excited. Thank you. Yeah. Good. Great. Um, well, we were happy to have you both say yes. Um, Danielle and I were just reflecting earlier in the month, I guess, or last couple of weeks. Yeah. Um, that tier three When we think about multi-tiered systems of support, tier three is an area that is kind of a, I don't know, a nebulous, cloud like figure in our lives where there's general shapes to it. Um, it's the, the top of the triangle is a, it's a, it's a triangle shape. Yeah. It's triangle. Um, but the, how it actually plays itself out in school settings is something that is not familiar to me. Um, and so, um, Mara, when we were talking about, uh, this particular episode, I was just excited that you were like, you know what? There's this lady out in Utah. Yeah. She's cool. I went to a session at a conference and then had dinner, and she's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. So, Jess, we're excited to have you here today to share, what you have done, in your work, and so, maybe you could set the stage for us like we can, um, you can tell us a little bit about where you worked. Um, how many schools were there, how many students just, you know, overall lay it all out there for us. Yeah. So, um, I'll start with saying my title there. So it was a very long, very long, uh, job title, but we were general education behavior specialist. Oh, great. Um, and yeah, it was when I, I actually was referred from my advisor during my master's for this job. And I was super excited when I heard about that because I had worked a lot in special ed side. And so when I heard, yeah, we need to be supporting our general education teachers. Sign me up. Yeah. And so when I first started, um, it's, it's a really large school district here, um, ninety two schools serving. I can't even imagine. Wow. I can't even imagine. It's enormous. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Sixty thousand plus students. Um, that's the size of standby. Sixty thousand students is the size of like our little sister city just up the road. Okay. Like, like that's a, that's a town just of students. It's bigger than my entire county. Yeah. Population wise. Yeah. And I was thinking of Autzen Stadium. Doesn't that hold like fifty five K? Oh, hey. So I'm just picturing that number of people, right? Yeah. Unbelievable. Okay, continue. Yeah. Ninety two schools, sixty thousand students. Got it. And they hired two of us. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. You got this. No problem. Casual. Easy peasy. What do you do that. Um. And absolutely no system at the at that time. Also helpful. Yeah. The school district was struggling. There was a high number of students receiving special education. And so the special ed director at the time was like, we need to do something. Let's hire some people to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the school district already had a lot of PBIs initiatives. They had PBIs coaches and MTSs specialists, but they really focused on school wide. Um, and there was that, again, that shape. We know that there's tier three up there, but a lot of people were like, well, that triangle special ed and triangles, not gen ed. Yes. Um, so, but again, the special ed director, she had that side of it is it's also gen ed. So how are we going to support that? Um, so we came in and we were like, all right, what do we do? Two of us, ninety two schools. So we created a referral process at the very beginning. It was a piece of paper that we created, and school staff would just have to find it somewhere on the drive And fill it out, send it either on the email or inter-district mail. And after. I don't know, two months like this isn't going to work. We need something more systematic. So we sat down and we decided we need a committee and we need a system. Okay, so, so you had you had ninety two schools, sixty thousand students. You said twenty percent of them had were referred for special education. And two of you. Yes. Okay. Okay. No system. Go ahead, go ahead. I just was it not working because you were getting a lot of referrals or was it not working because you weren't getting referrals? Yeah, that is a great what was not working? What was not working is we were getting a lot of referrals from the same people because they knew about us. And so they referred and then the people who didn't know about us weren't referring. Um, So makes sense. Yes. That's where we saw there was a hole here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So then. So then. Oh go ahead Danielle. Do you want to take the next question? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we want to hear more about what you did then because you need you're like, and I know a lot of us are systems thinkers, right? Like looking at Mara in particular. So what did you do to put systems in place for those referrals you received? Tell us about that. And what was kind of like the goal you had in mind for putting those systems in? Our ultimate goal, and I hope everybody in education is a student. So our goal was, how are we going to help students the best? Um, and I think the other thing we thought was it's not about quantity, it's about quality. Um, so not just like how do we throw a huge net? It's how do we help specific students in our capacity? Um, so we brought together a committee at first and it was our district director for our department. We had our associate director. We had our special education behavior liaison is what we called her. And then we also had our school psychologists and social work coordinators since we worked really closely with those individuals in schools. But we all sat down and said, okay. And I say this like it was in one meeting. This was over years, but it was an iterative process. Yeah, we started with, okay, first, what's our referral process? How are we going to get this out to the school so they know who we are? Yeah. So we created an online referral forum and then we sat down with the. principals and said, this is who we are and this is what we do and this is how you access us. So we started with the administrators, and then we met with the school psychologists and social workers, and we did the same thing and said, this is who we are and this is what we do. Um, so that was how we first got the word out about who we were. Yeah. And the nice thing is, is we were, we were both, uh, board certified behavior analysts. So bcbas. So we understood the process of supporting students. So we didn't have to come up with that piece. You know, we knew we were going to go in, we were going to observe, we were going to conduct functional behavior assessments. I know you guys just did a podcast on those. Yeah, that was our last one. We did. Yeah. People want to dive into that. You should. I could spend a whole hour talking about it. So yeah. Um, but then writing a behavior plan based on the function and making sure we really focus on proactive supports and reinforcement. So we already had that piece in place, but it was like, how do we get out to schools and then really support the students out there with that? Um, that process in mind? Yeah. Awesome. Um, yeah, um, the thing that we learned from our podcast last time was with, uh, Chris. Mhm. Was that, um, those the f b a process, um, goes hand in hand with the behavior support plan. Yes. That, um, there can be this misconception that it's something that you do once behavior has reached a certain point with certain students. And what we learned from him is that it can be a preventative thing where you're just constantly, you can, um, implement some function based thinking with people. But, um, that the actual components of it, there are lots of parts to that process that are easily translated to general education settings, but they also ultimately need to result in some kind of plan on how to move forward. You can't just like do the thing and say, well, are you? Is that did I fix it? Exactly. No. It goes there's a plan that's always involved. Yeah. It's oh, I was just going to say it's to serve the kids, right. Like it's to support them. Like that's the whole point is to understand why they're doing it and then Help and help the kiddos. Yeah, that was something that we saw too, is sometimes we get a referral, go out. We run an FBA, look at the classroom environment. Um, you know, observe the student and say, you know, you were, you referred for the tier three supports, but really, I think the student can be supported at tier one. Again, just thinking functionally. So, um, that was something too that was really nice about this process is, um, we were able to come in and help the schools where they were at. Um, and that's something that we put into our process was we had three levels of support. Yeah, yeah. I tell everybody about the three levels. Tell us all about it. Yeah, I love the three levels. Yeah. That was something when we, when that dawned on us, we're like, why would we not do this? Because again, eventually we had three district behavior specialists, which was great because we showed that the two of us were making some some great things happen. So we should have three. Yeah, we got three. And the three of us are like, still, how do we best get hour, like under our capacity. How can we best support our students? So we came up with these three levels of support to meet the school and the student where they were at. Our kind of lightest level of support was our consultation. So this one, we would go out and observe the student and then sit down and have maybe one or two meetings with the school team, just to talk through what we observed, the data they already had, maybe a plan they already had in place and just some things they could tweak. Um, and, you know, sometimes we would see they conducted an FBA or in some cases had three months of ABC data. And so we would say, okay, let's synthesize this. Let's look at it. And, you know, really it looks like you maybe said it was escape. But when you really look at the data, it was attention maintained. So let's just switch how we're addressing the behavior, how we're reinforcing. Um, so that was great because we could go out and make a big impact without taking too much resources away from us and the school team. So that was kind of our, you know. You know, our light level of support. But we could really meet them where they. Were at. Um, that was also great for school teams that we had already supported in the past. Because one thing we also tried to do is every time we would work with a school team, we. Were trying to increase their capacity. So understand the process so they could do it again. So if we had a case that we had maybe supported that school before, and they just needed a little extra support with another student. That consultation was really great for that, that kind of, um, that kind of need. Mhm. Um, and then our next level was our standard support. So this is what most of our students. Got in school teams. Um, but this one involved, um, again, those observations, we were doing more observations at this point and to really get a good picture of the student and the classroom environment. And here we would have biweekly meetings, uh, so every other week, and we would meet with the school team to create a plan together to do fidelity checks to make sure that the plan is being implemented correctly. Um, and that typically would last about six to eight weeks for that support piece. Um, and so again, you know, we're out there, we're helping support the students, but it's not too much time away from the school team. It's also not too much to stretch us at the district. So that standard support was really great. Um, and then after the six to eight weeks, we usually were able to fade. So then we could help more students. Mhm. Mhm. Um, and then our kind of, our heavy hitter was our in-class coaching. Um, so our, our highest level support and that is what it sounds like. So we took our standard support, but then we were in the classroom, we were in there modeling. Um, we were giving teachers feedback in the moment. Um, and this typically was for the students that had the most challenging behaviors. Um, so we made sure that we were in there helping the teachers feel supported. Also, in some cases, you know, I like to think I'm pretty good at my job, but sometimes I can't just say this is what we're going to do. It's going to work. I need time with the student. So with some of the cases, I would set aside time. Um, that first week that we would get the referral and I would spend more time in that classroom trying things on with the student. Um, and that way I was able to bring more ideas back to the team. And then a lot of times we would do kind of that, um, I do, we do, you do. So I would, I would do the behavior plan and then we would do it together. Me and the classroom teacher and then the classroom teacher would do it and I would faint out. Yeah. Yeah. Danielle model. We were talking earlier. Um, that, uh, I think it's come up maybe once or twice before in different episodes, but Danielle used to have back in, back in her teaching days, she used to have time where she, um, she co-taught her class. Yes, yes. So when I was teaching seventh grade language arts, I had a special ed teacher who was also our PBIs team lead and a friend, and she co-taught one period a day with me and did very similar to what you're describing, Jess. Like a lot of modeling, which I learned a lot from too as a, as a newer, you know, teacher to see, oh, here's how she's doing it. And we could kind of teach alongside one another. And I found that to be incredibly helpful. And we, you know, I don't remember the logistics of how that was designed, but that class had a bigger, a lot of, you know, students that were on her caseload that she would come and just co-teach with me. And gosh, I just think that's so helpful as an educator too, because it's such an, it can be such an isolating profession, right? You're in your room and you're just doing your thing. And so to have someone there, especially if you can build a trust with them and work alongside with them and learn from one another. Gosh, we need more of that. I think in, in our classrooms. I agree. Yeah. And I just had some experience too. Um, we spoke again with, uh, Chris Borgmeyer last, uh, last month and talked a lot about the basic FBA and, um, and what that can look like. They have a set of training modules that you can take online, which are excellent. And I've spent the last couple of weeks just kind of going through module by module and they have a pre-test and post-test. And here's what I will say vulnerably and honestly to everyone who's listening, I took those that pre-test and there was one, I think I got twenty percent like, I don't know much about what's going on, right? So lots of room to grow, lots of room to grow. That was what, that's what everyone around the office has been saying. But here's the other thing that I will say is that I did not score one hundred percent on the post-test. I didn't even there was one. I didn't even get seventy five percent. So what I will say is that I think that there is big value in this coaching that you're talking about, that we can learn concepts or be, um, or just kind of given definitions or this is kind of how you do it and someone can just tell that to you. But I think the implementation of that for some of us anyway. Again, vulnerably and honestly, for some of us, that coaching aspect of it, I think must have been super helpful for a lot of educators that you worked with. Yeah. And that's something too that we found. Um, you know, because what I have heard a lot from other people, other businesses, Sometimes they are handed a behavior plan like a teacher is handed a behavior plan, said, okay, go do by. And yeah, maybe that person had observed once in the classroom and then wrote a plan. And you know, that's just not that's not how it works in schools. And that's something that I think we really tried to build into our, our process was the teachers, the expert in the classroom. I have behavior expertise and I can come in and do that. But the teacher is the expert. So making sure that what we were doing fit inside what that teacher was already doing. Mhm. Because that also, if I say, okay, now do you're doing A, B, and C, now you have to do L. And they're like, okay, well, how does that even fit? Yeah. So trying to say you're doing A, B, and C, let's try and add in D so that it's just it's, it's going to fit into what they're already doing because they're not going to be able to do it if it's not feasible in the classroom. Mhm. And if they don't have buy in. And so if we, you know, that's something that we really try to do is in those meetings. Um, I wanted to make sure it was teacher led. The teacher gets to bring in, um, the concerns and the things that they're already doing. And I'm going to try and say, okay, if we're thinking functionally, you know, we have an escape maintained behavior, how are we going to prevent it with what you're already doing? Or what can we layer on top of what you're doing to help prevent that? And then what kind of behaviors are we going to teach in your classroom? What are behaviors that you like to see? We might not get to, you know, the perfect one that you want, but what are some steps that we can do within your classroom and within your, what you can tolerate to teach the student? And then the, the other piece of the reinforcement, what are you already doing in your class that will reinforce the student. Um, and you know, a lot of times when you bring reinforcement up, teachers are like, well, you know, we don't have a lot of money. I can't just keep buying toys or candy or things like that. And I don't want to do that. It's like, that's not how we're going to do it. We're going to think functionally. So what can we do that's, you know, free typically and already within what you're doing in your classroom to reinforce that behavior. Incredible. I have a question, follow up question. Just thinking about that coaching model and the district that I was in previously, and just when I went to your presentation in Chicago, I definitely had that moment of, oh golly, I wish I had heard all of this five years ago, right? As we were district that was really trying to take that special education kind of misconception around behavior support plans and move it into general education. And as I'm hearing the tears and the coaching, um, you know, my question, I guess, is it sounds like you were working directly with the teachers a lot. Was there someone in the building when you were kind of doing that more standard or more intensive support? Who was kind of that day to day point person and, and, you know, also coaching the teacher and providing that support because obviously with ninety schools, you can't be there on a daily basis. So that was one that I've been kind of like, you know, what did that part of the support look like? Yeah. And so like I said, we built this into the systems that were already in the district and they had student support teams at the school. And so that was really the team that we were working with. And that team typically was an administrator. The school psychologist, the school social worker. And then when we were working in this, we would bring in the general education teacher. Um, so that was the team that we were typically working with. And we mostly were supported by the social workers. So the way that our district worked is, uh, social workers were kind of the, the behavior expert in the, in the school. Uh, for our gen ed side. And then the social worker or the psychologist were the behavior expert on the bed side and kind of how they separated it. Um, we tried to bring everyone together and say, we all have expertise. Um, and, uh, so, but it was, it was typically the social worker. So, um, and that was another piece that we had on top of all this is we did a lot of training in the district. So, um, we did district wide trainings for social workers and psychologists on thinking functionally writing behavior plans. Um, so that we were kind of giving them that, that information even before we came in. Um, we also did school specific training. So a school could request us to come out and do any topic they wanted around behavior. Um, and we would go out and do that typically on their, um, student non-attendance days or their PD days typically. And we would make those about forty five minutes. Um, because time and teachers typically on those days have so much to do. And so we tried to keep our trainings forty five minutes. A lot of schools we would create kind of a series. So throughout a year, we would come once a month and just really build off of the behavior. Um, level by level. Mhm. Um, and yeah, so we, we did a lot of training. And I think that comes back to our social workers. We, we really train them and spent a lot of time with them. So we had a really good relationship. Um, and the schools that we, we did support multiple times, um, we saw those social workers grow to where they would maybe just call us and say, hey, I got this kid. We ran an FBA. Do you have some ideas? And then we could chat a little bit and then that was it. So they wouldn't even have to put a referral anymore. So we were really building the capacity. Um, you know, we were never afraid that we were going to, uh, train our way out of our job. We had so many schools. Yes. And that's a huge need. Yeah. So we, we wanted to make everybody that we could into their own gen ed behavior specialists. Yeah, that's what it sounds like you were doing. Absolutely. Mhm. And, Megan, we haven't brought up social workers in a while, but of course, here they are again. Like, here they are. Yeah. Such an important part of the PBIs framework. Really? One hundred percent. Yeah. We've, um, last, uh, the last school year, um, I think it was last school year, maybe the one before, maybe both. Maybe both. They, uh, social workers came up again and again and again. Every episode, I felt like as like, if you were to tell people how to make your school work better or how to be more inclusive in your community, everyone was like, get us, get the social workers on your team. Like add them to the group, get them in the mix. Because not only are they connected to, um, to students, but they're also connected to community resources that, um, you can leverage. And so, um, so to, to hear you talk about the value of social workers in the work that you were trying to do. Um, really makes a lot of sense, I think, to both of us. Yeah, absolutely. Um, do you want to tell us about the outcomes? Do you want to just go into the like, what did you how did it all go? So you did all this stuff. Exactly. Your training, general education, behavior specialists, coaching and modeling. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing it all. So how did it go? It went amazing. Yeah. Yay! Of course it did. So after five years of doing this, I was like, I've been collecting data because I love data. And so over five years, I had just been I've just been collecting all this. And I was like, okay, let's synthesize this. What, what do we see over the five years? Um, and I was just so, so happy when I, I crunched the numbers. So over five years, we supported two hundred and eighty three students. Wow. And of those two hundred and eighty three, about sixty two percent of those students remained in their general education classroom, with their general education peers accessing their general education curriculum. Yeah. Incredible. Wow. Congratulations. Incredible. Yeah, I know, I it was just so great to see that we were able to make an impact for those students who potentially would have maybe been found eligible for special education when they didn't need it, just because of their behaviors. And so it was just really exciting to see that. Um, and, uh, looking at, okay, great. We did that, uh, in those moments, those students. But what about long term? Um, so I looked at as of spring twenty twenty five, of those students that remained in general education, seventy eight percent were still in general education. Excellent. That's wonderful. That was the goal you hoped for, right? Like you hoped to achieve that for for students and for teachers too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and for the, um, roughly thirty five percent that were found eligible for special education supports, it didn't doesn't mean we failed them. No, they just found the right supports. Exactly. Yeah. So what I look at here is for two hundred and eighty three students putting in this system, we were able to help them find the right support so they can be successful in their education. Incredible. Mara, when you, uh, when we started the episode, you had mentioned that when you listened to to Jess and the things that she was sharing in the presentation, all the things that we're hearing right now that you thought, man, this would have been, this would have been helpful for me to have heard this a little while ago, like if only I had heard it. Right. Yeah. So tell us why you had that. Like, what was what, what, what is it about hearing this particular system that makes you think that perhaps others who are listening right now might need, might pay attention and say we could do this too. I think definitely the tier within the tier aspect of it really stood out to me. The district that I was working in, I would say, honestly, we really did eventually get there pretty well at the elementary level where we had identified staff in the building. Some of them were their job title wasn't social worker. Some of them were licensed social workers. Some of them were former special ed teachers. They were student support specialists. Um, and so they were in that role. And so we really did kind of that building up and that coaching of them when you were talking about it just I have one. Um, she's a good friend now, but I remember she was a social worker and we were, you know, coaching her and consulting on a behavior support plan. And we were looking at our Swiss data, you know, and she was like, Mara, I think I like data. Like as a data coach in person. Like it's the best thing you could ever hear. Coming from, you know, her role where she had previously been, um, you know, a therapist working directly with students and that more clinical setting. She was like, I'm always trying to understand the why and what's going on for the student. And this data just helps me get there faster. Right. So, um, so that was in place, but I think where, um, we definitely struggled at the secondary level, um, with just that shift because people had seen the special ed version of the behavior support plan that's ten pages long and super complicated. And that was what they knew. And so we didn't really have a great way to help them transition to what a general education Support version would look like. So one, the fact that you had the data, I wish I had done that at the elementary level. So we would have been easier to make our case at the secondary level of, look, if we do something like this, this is actually what can happen. Um, and then particularly after the pandemic, and just as you know, the myth that was not busted a couple of months ago on the podcast, right? Things are changing. And so I think even at that elementary level, that kind of clear referral process and, and you didn't speak to it directly, but in your presentation, you talked about kind of how you decided what level of support folks were needing and how you were going to meet them, where they were and the needs of the student. And so that was something where I was like, wow, that really would have helped us, um, you know, be more efficient and spread the capacity better at the elementary level when things started to shift because it was working until it wasn't working. And I think if you were to speak to folks now, it feels a little more chaotic and kind of unclear as to how you identify levels of support and get the most efficient use out of your behavior specialists, for sure. Yeah. Data collection and decision rules around it are super helpful. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So, Jess, I want to go back to something you said because you were talking about the outcomes on kids, which is great. And we saw some, you know, keeping kids in the general ed classroom. But let's talk more about those general ed teachers, because I think there must have been an impact that you had on them. Like I'm thinking when I was a teacher and doing that, you know, co-teaching with a special ed teacher in my room, like I learned a ton and I didn't just stick with that works in fifth period. That went to all my classes, right? Like that just were skills that now I had and could use and, um, and carry forward. So can you tell us more about the teacher perspective and what you heard from them, what they found beneficial about this system and what they kind of kept with them. Yeah. Um, so we, um, we took some official social validity data two of the years. Um, but you know, we really felt it over the whole time. Um, and I think that the biggest tell was I kept relationships with these teachers. They would email me, they would call me, um, you know, I've since left that district and am now pursuing my PhD and I still hear from them. Um, odd to me, like that's what I feel is a lot of these teachers, they really felt supported. And I think that's the only thing that I can do as a district specialist to support the teachers. Um, but when we look at the actual numbers, we were able to gather, um, we, um, we did see overall that, um, teachers were rating that our effectiveness was really high, um, out of a Likert scale zero to five. We had a four point nine rating on our effectiveness. I know, um, the, uh, overall satisfaction, um, from our support was four point six. So, um, those numbers were showing that teachers, they liked us and we were effective in their classroom. Yeah. Um, that's amazing. Yeah. And my favorite quote was, um, I appreciated that the strategies were designed with my classroom in mind. They did not require me to change what I was already doing for my whole class. And again, I think I already said this, but that collaboration piece and looking at the teacher as the expert in their room, I think is the reason that we were effective, that we got teacher buy in, that we built relationships because, um, again, I had heard too many horror stories of, oh, it's the specialist coming in or oh, you're a bcba. Oh gosh, that too. And it's like, I'm not here to tell you you're wrong or what you need to do. I'm here to to talk through it and bring my lens. But what can we do as a team to support this student and the teacher? Because those two were the people that needed. That's why I was there. I was there to help them. So, um, I think that that was the, the biggest piece. Um, and yeah, I think staff really enjoyed our support. Yeah, it really sounds like it. Wow. I mean, I think that that's a huge, um, statement to know that some are still in contact with you and just reaching out like that says a lot. Yeah, we talk a lot with, we talk to a lot of people. And building relationships is really central to the work that we're all trying to do one hundred percent, not just with, um, not just with the students, but also within like amongst staff and amongst other teachers. But then like you're saying, building those relationships at the, with district level, um, resources is also really, um, important to being able to feel like you're doing good work, you know, and no one's out to try and get you or make your life harder. Because the other thing that we've heard is that teachers are, are doing a lot of stuff right now. And so the idea of adding something to their, to the way that they work, um, when they're already feeling overwhelmed sometimes is a step too far. And it sounds like that's not what you were doing, that you were building on the skills and the resources that they already had, the things they were already doing and just saying, you could just do it like this. And it would, it would improve your situation, which is something that we heard from Billy Joe and Noah too, about tier two support that it's not an extra thing. No, it's just more of the same thing. Yeah. And kind of bolstering and uplifting the as needed. Yeah. That's right, that's right. I think that there are people like Mara who will hear this the story and and say, I think we should do something like this. We need this in our district. So, um, let's just talk to those people right now. Um, that if there's someone out there that came to you and said, I would love to do this in my district, how do we start? What do we do? What are my first steps? What would you tell them? I would say first, look at the systems you already have in place. What's already in the district and how can you build into that? Because trying to do something completely different, especially in big districts, is just it's not going to happen. So how can you kind of find your way into what's already occurring? Um, and start there and then start small. I think when we were like, we're just going to let this out, this whole district and then it didn't work. Yeah. Try piloting it. Maybe pick two or three schools. Um, And and and Mara, I like that you brought up the difference between elementary and secondary because there is a difference there. And so I would recommend starting elementary. Um, there's typically it's easier because there's less moving parts than in secondary. So starting small, starting in your elementary and then seeing how you're going to build off of that into your secondary settings. Um, maybe further down the line and try and do that all at once either. Um, and then, um, you know, I think finding that behavior expertise of somebody who already has that foundational piece of, um, you know, thinking functionally writing behavior plans, um, because if you're trying to do that while creating a system that's going to be hard. So, um, having that expert that can then say, how am I going to fit this into what's existing? Mhm. Um, and we have all of our materials that we created. We've got meeting agendas, we have our process. Mara, you brought up we did have our behavior rating scale. So more data to decide what kind of supports that we would, um, you know, propose to the school teams. all of that information that we have, so how we did all the things we do have that in a drive that I think we'll, yeah, we'll link it in the description for folks. So I think that's the other thing is just talking to other districts. Um, so seeing what we did and modifying some of the pieces or pulling some of those pieces to what would work in your district. Um, here in Utah, we also have a, um, behavior collective where a bunch of us who worked in schools as behavior specialists. We get together every couple of months and talk about what each of us are doing and hearing. Other districts, I think is great because you can say, oh, I like what you're doing. I think I should shift what I'm doing to do that. Mhm. So collaboration, I think. Yeah. Building community outside of your regular one is important. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Mhm. Well, all of this is wonderful. I every time lately I've been. I mean, I tell you what, I've just been exploring tier three. Um, and just kind of saying, I don't know, anything. So tell me something. Well, I'm starting to learn more. And, uh, and this just hearing these kinds of examples of how you were able to do this, not, not in some small place, but in a really big place with very few of you, um, to support a lot of students and how successful you were able to be. Um, how, um, how well it was received by the people who were doing the work, um, in those classrooms. Um, all of that is really inspiring and I think makes it feel actually doable, you know? Um, so thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Yeah. And our audience and all of those folks out there listening, I think they're gonna learn a lot alongside of us. Yeah. Thanks so much. Thank you guys.