Practical Expertise
from our team to yours
Growing in Leadership: Building, Learning, and Letting Go
A strong idea is only the beginning; what matters is whether people can use it consistently, adapt it thoughtfully, and sustain it over time. I am increasingly convinced that distributed leadership is not about making leadership less accountable. It is about making accountability more collective. The first five years of entrepreneurship have reinforced that leadership is not a destination in my life. It is a continual process of becoming more reflective, more courageous, more collaborative, and more willing to let the work rest with more than one person.
Stop Looking Outside: Building the Expertise Within Our Schools
Although professional learning should continue to strengthen every educator's practice, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to become an expert in everything. The schools that will be most successful are not those with the most programs or the most outside consultants, but those that intentionally build expertise from within. Capacity is not built through isolated professional development days—it is built every day when educators learn from one another while working toward a common purpose.
The Right Support at the Right Time: Using MTSS to Guide Decision-Making
Despite the effectiveness of FBA-informed strategies, an FBA can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, and is not always necessary. When Tier 1 and Tier 2 are implemented well, few students should require Tier 3-level assessment and intervention. For a school-based BCBA who may be spread across several schools, limited FBA resources are often best reserved for students with the most individualized or intensive needs.
Developing Virtual Intensive Settings that Meet IEP and Legal Requirements
In an intensive virtual program, documentation becomes even more important because it provides evidence of service delivery, student engagement, progress toward goals, and communication with families. Objective data supports instructional decisions and provides meaningful evidence during IEP meetings. Effective documentation is more than a compliance requirement; it is the foundation of quality special education services.
When Professional Development Reflects Classroom Reality
There is a reality many teachers quietly acknowledge: the greatest challenge we face each day often receives the least attention. Like our students, teachers learn best when they can apply new skills, reflect on their experiences, and continue improving over time. Teachers want to support every student, especially those facing significant mental and behavioral health challenges, but we cannot do so effectively without meaningful preparation, practical tools, collaborative systems, and strong administrative support.
How Transparent Reporting Strengthens School Partnerships
Transparent reporting in K-12 partnerships extends beyond budgets and audits- it also depends on how the programs are implemented, how outcomes are measured, and how student private information is protected. Clear communication about organizational practices, program goals, and measurable outcomes allows partners to better understand the value of the services being provided.
Building Proactive Systems to Support FBA-BIPs
Although FBA-BIPs are often viewed as a last resort when student behavior has escalated, there is a strong evidence base for their use to support any student whose behavior interferes with learning through function-based support applied across a progression of need. By providing support across a range of needs for any student whose behavior interferes with learning, regardless of additional needs, schools can often provide effective interventions before a behavior escalates. It is critical for schools and districts to develop a network of local supports and partnerships to expand capacity by improving access to existing resources.
Beyond the Classroom Walls: Rethinking Intervention for Severe Behavior Needs
Success is not achieved by simply shipping a laptop home and assigning passive digital modules. It requires a deliberate, highly structured, and collaborative approach that transforms the home environment into a proactive space for behavioral intervention. When a student is no longer constantly dysregulated, they finally possess the cognitive bandwidth to learn coping mechanisms and emotional regulation strategies.
Creating Aligned Behavioral Supports Across Your Distric
Creating a unified behavioral support system is one of the most impactful initiatives a district can undertake for students with behavioral needs. Successful implementation requires every adult working with the student to understand the plan and their responsibilities within it. As with many things in life, to find success, the groundwork we lay in the beginning supports our future endeavors.
When Teaching Feels Like Survival Mode: Managing Student Behavior Without Losing Yourself
What shows up in the classroom is usually bigger than the classroom itself. Here’s a truth worth holding onto: Teachers are responsible to their students, but they are not responsible for every circumstance their students bring into the classroom. You are not simply managing a classroom. You are shaping future employees, parents, neighbors, leaders, innovators, and citizens.
Moving Beyond the One-Person FBA: A Team-Based Approach to High-Quality FBAs
Behavior is contextual and relational, influenced by instruction, environment, sensory needs, and lived experiences. No single discipline holds all of that insight. A distributed evaluation model is a systems solution to a systems problem. No single discipline - whether psychology, behavior analysis, social work, or education - has a complete view of why a student behaves the way they do. Each field offers a lens. The strength of an FBA lies in how those lenses are combined.
Staying Present for the Absent
We’re all trying our best, but sometimes we need to try different approaches rather than harder ones. When teachers and parents are eager to work with me, my clients' success rate instantly doubles. Therapists, parents, and teachers who operate in isolation fail the student. Escalating pressure tends to escalate avoidance. The path back to the building is almost always paved with safety, relationship, and small wins — not warnings.
What Systems Stories Teach Us About Supporting Complex Students
Over time, the system becomes more invested in delivering professional learning about the work than in supporting the work itself. How do we turn these high‑capacity programs into engines for spreading expertise outward (consultation, modeling, and co‑planning with general education teams) rather than magnets that continually pool students and resources.
Built for the Room: How Threshold Learning Connects Everything Around Those Who Need It Most
TLC didn't build a marketing strategy and then find an audience. They identified real pain points in real school systems and built toward viable solutions. The entry point looks different for everyone, but the destination is the same: educators who feel equipped, supported, and seen. TLC's answer, built into every resource, every course, every partnership, is yes. They built the whole thing around your reality.
Making Families Partners, Not Recipients: Involving Families and Students in the FBA/BIP Process
The FBA process is designed to answer one question: Why is this behavior happening? And the people with the richest, most complete answer to that question are usually the family and the student. Behavioral jargon exists for good reasons — precision matters when we're talking about reinforcement schedules and function-based interventions. But the working document that goes home, the one a grandmother is supposed to reference when her grandson is escalating after dinner, needs to be written in plain language.
Consistent Expectations Through Connectedness
What I challenge myself with professionally, as our district continues to build consistent behavioral expectations, is to celebrate the value each school brings to the district and align their unique qualities through systematic change. The power of belief makes something that may seem impossible, possible. It drives energy toward the possibility of change when change wasn’t considered a possibility.
From Mindset to Impact: How Schools Turn Belief Into Student Success
If teachers don’t believe they can impact student growth, they won’t. Parents, students, teachers, office staff, counselors, etc., should all understand the academic, social, and behavioral expectations placed on students. Individuals can only act on what they know; if they don’t, there is room for deviation and underperformance. This work requires honesty and a commitment to avoid blame shifting. Acknowledge what can and what cannot be controlled and go hard on what can be controlled.
Quick Screen or Deep Dive: Understanding Checklists vs. Comprehensive FBAs
The difference between a checklist FBA and a comprehensive FBA is not just about paperwork; it affects the quality of the behavior intervention plan (BIP) that follows. A checklist approach can help teams quickly identify possible functions of behavior, while a comprehensive assessment provides the detailed analysis needed to design effective interventions.
Starting With Purpose, Not Placement: Matching Students to Remote or Hybrid Learning with Intentionality
If the placement is being used simply because there are no other options, or to “get the student out of the building,” it is unlikely to succeed—regardless of the student’s profile. The key question is simple: Will this placement help the student move toward engagement or further away from it Two students returning from psychiatric care may look identical on paper but have very different readiness levels. The placement should match the student’s phase of recovery, not just their history.
What It Really Means to Support Teachers
When a teacher says, “This is too much,” they’re not failing—they’re giving you critical information. Supporting behavior isn’t just what happens in the moment; it’s the planning before and the processing after. Looking back, the moments that kept me going weren’t the perfectly executed lessons or the breakthrough behavior plans. They were the moments when I felt supported as a human being.