Behavioral Intervention (BCBA): From ABA to District Partner - Tucker Mueck's Story

In this episode of The FAST 15, Barb Beck interviews Tucker Mueck, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with extensive experience in special education settings. Tucker's journey began in high school, where he participated in a mentoring program for students with special needs.  He is now the Director of District Partnerships for Specially Designed Education Services (SDES).

Key Points Discussed:

1. Early Mentoring Experience:

• Tucker shares his involvement in a high school mentoring program, emphasizing the power of personal connections and mentorship.
• Mentoring was focused on building relationships with students who needed extra support or a friend.

2. Transition to Special Education:

• After high school, Tucker pursued a degree in education but eventually switched to special education.
• He obtained his Master's in Special Education from Texas Tech University and developed a passion for working with students with autism and behavioral challenges.

3. Insights into Behavioral Analysis:

• Tucker worked in various settings, including private A.B.A. clinics, public schools, and in-home therapy.
• Describes a unique farm-like environment where movement and physical activities were integrated into learning, highlighting the importance of hands-on experience.
• Emphasizes the significance of understanding and analyzing behavior, providing insights into strategies like movement breaks and consistent communication.

4. Role as Director of District Partnerships:

• Currently serves as the Director of District Partnerships for S.D.E.S. and The Functional Academics Program.
• Travels the country, assisting teachers in implementing Functional Academic resources for students.

5. Encouraging Resilience and Consistency:

• Discusses the challenge of maintaining consistency, especially when fatigued, and encourages educators not to take behavioral challenges personally.
• Recommends having a bank of activities for days when energy is low and emphasizes the importance of releasing oneself from personalizing student behavior.

6. Functional Academics Program:

• Tucker shares his role in introducing teachers to the Functional Academics Program, describing it as a structured toolset that empowers teachers while providing flexibility.
• Highlights the upcoming tools to simplify data collec

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

In this episode of the Fast 15, we get a chance to talk with Tucker Meek. Tucker is a board-certified behavior analyst who has been working with students in the special education setting since high school. He received his master's in special education from Texas Tech University in 2014 and immediately started working with a variety of students. Over the next decade, Tucker worked in private ABA clinics, public schools and in-home therapy. Tucker has experienced starting and running a nonprofit organization to help fund services for students with special needs, as well as volunteering at the Special Olympics. He currently works as the director of district partnerships for SDS and the Functional Academics Program, where he is able to travel the country and help provide functional academic resources for teachers and students. Let's join into the conversation with Barb Beck as she discovers more about his inspiring journey.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Hi, we're here with Tucker Meek today and I love getting a chance to talk to you. I don't get to get the perspective from behavioral specialists like you very often, so this is a wonderful opportunity, not just for me but for our listeners. So thank you for joining on with us today. I wanted to get your story about your whole journey from high school. I know you were introduced to the field of special education in high school. Then, when you left, graduated and went on to Texas Tech University, what was that whole process like for you? Can you just tell your story? Yeah?

Speaker 3: 1:32

Yeah, thanks again for having me on. I really appreciate it. So I have always, as you mentioned, just fallen into working with students and with children, especially going back to high school. We have a PALS program that I worked in.

Speaker 1: 1:45

It's like an experience kind of program.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Yeah, it's more mentoring than anything so more mentoring, similar to Big Brother's Big Sister. So it was students that just needed a little extra guidance or maybe just an extra help or a friend at the least, and so that program was really powerful for me as a 17, 18 year old. So I was able to go into elementary classrooms and I had my buddy one for my elementary set and then one for my middle school set and really we just got to know each other. That was the core of it, was just being around somebody having fun.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Being a friend and making those connections socially.

Speaker 3: 2:25

Exactly, exactly. Being a friend helping out the teacher and just saying, hey, what is going on this week that we can just work through, maybe or talk about? And that was where I was really first introduced into special education. The student I had was diagnosed with autism. Very sweet kid and just very enjoyable to be around. I was just like somebody that, looking for a role model, looking for attention, and it was just a blast to just be able to teach these kids and how to do school, just even starting out as a great program.

Speaker 2: 2:55

All the basics. Yeah exactly yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:59

So after that I went to college and went to school out in Abilene, Texas, and started out wanting to become a teacher and then freaked myself out with some of the classwork that I switched and just decided like I was worried about taking certain classes and, for whatever reason, decided to switch and eventually, when I got my masters, I ended up finding myself back in the special education field there, got my masters in special education and really just fell in love with what I was doing, which was working with mostly students that have autism or behavioral challenges. So that's what I went into right after school.

Speaker 2: 3:37

Okay, so you worked in some clinic settings, you worked in classroom settings. Tell a little bit about your trajectory of learning and understanding behavior and what all of the components are to that how to keep students at base. What was that process like for you to really analyze behavior and know how that kind of plays out in different contexts, how to intervene when needed, how to back off when needed? All of those things.

Speaker 3: 4:05

Yeah, yeah, I would say, first and foremost, I had great mentors that I learned from. I had a BCBA that's my certification board, certified behavior analyst and so I worked alongside two other BCBAs that were just fantastically patient with me and just helping me understand our students and the kids we worked with.

Speaker 3: 4:25

The first place I worked was at essentially like a farm and it was fantastic so we had animals, we had plenty of space for our kids to run around, and I think that opened my eyes to just seeing that a lot of our students need activity first and foremost. Right Sitting in a chair sitting all day long is tough. So any movement that we can do, whether it's two minutes just taking a movement break with our students or 10 minutes of hey everyone, we're all tired, let's go outside and just move around for a bit. It's so beneficial.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And just being able to be as verbal as you need to in certain circumstances, all the time.

Speaker 3: 5:02

Yeah, yeah, we definitely would scream outside just for fun, we would definitely have just no rules. If you want to throw something, as long as it's not at somebody, throw it over the fence like sand or sticks, like just do it. This is the time you can, right. And then just really getting to know my students and knowing especially my students with autism and then others that did have behavioral challenges. It was more about just letting them know what was happening, right, letting them be a little bit in control of what we're doing, giving them those options of hey, right now, I know you want to do something, but here's what we're doing. There's two choices. You can have one or the other and then we'll go work towards whatever our ultimate goal is there.

Speaker 3: 5:40

A big piece of it is just being consistent, and that's the hardest part sometimes is just being able to be okay with being tired and still being consistent, be okay with letting your kids have an off day and still being as consistent as you can, right. But those are just some of those foundational pieces of helping some of my kids that I really still lean on and encourage students and parents and other clinicians to this day to just remember those pieces too.

Speaker 2: 6:06

Yeah, you highlighted. When you're tired and I think as a classroom teacher or for a behavioral analyst and anybody in the field, related service providers. There are those moments where you get so fatigued and you run out, maybe run out of ideas, and so in those early years, can you encourage people who may be struggling in that early learning in the field how to build that resilience and I think you just did say it it's that consistency that's so important.

Speaker 3: 6:41

What was it for you.

Speaker 2: 6:43

What would you do, what would you say to encourage somebody if they're really struggling with that?

Speaker 3: 6:47

Yeah, I'd say first and foremost. A lot of times I think we as humans just assume or maybe believe something's personal when it happens and so with my students regardless of age, and I know I've worked elementary all the way up to high school and those students high school middle schoolers they'll tell you exactly what they think about you.

Speaker 3: 7:07

But just kind of knowing like A little language at times, yeah, and that's fine. But just knowing it's coming from a place that it's not really meant to be directed towards you most of the time, and so just knowing that it's not personal towards me, there's something else that's maybe going on. Maybe they're stressed or they're tired. So for my older group it's just remembering hey, you're right, sometimes I am just annoying, I get that, but here's why. Here's what I'm trying to work towards with you. And then for my younger kids, I try to have a bank of five to 10 activities. It's just if I'm exhausted, here's things that we're all gonna enjoy doing. We can all in a sense get through our day and still be productive. But making it fun for our kids too, because I know sometimes they get a little tired of some of the monotonous things that maybe we're doing and they need to mix it up. So getting messy, using some shaving cream, using markers on the whiteboard, just something that's different, is always exciting for my students, especially those elementary students.

Speaker 2: 8:09

Right, you said a couple of things that just really hit me Not personalizing what's happening with somebody behaviorally, and just knowing that there are deeper things at times that are happening outside of the classroom. Maybe there are things happening at home, maybe things that you just aren't aware of, and knowing that it's not always about you or what you're doing or not doing, it's just simply the situation. So releasing yourself from that and then also, when you do have time and you have the energy, to get those activities in your tool chest or your sleep.

Speaker 2: 8:45

Oh, now I've got this that I can throw in the mix when, in the moment, you may be too tired. Even think of what that might be so to have those tools set up for yourself before you get into a sleep.

Speaker 3: 8:57

Yeah, I would even say just even thinking about that, especially my elementary kids. For whatever reason, if they didn't sleep well the night before, usually they didn't eat breakfast. So it's always, if you're always wondering about a student, just ask them have you eaten anything?

Speaker 2: 9:11

today.

Speaker 3: 9:12

Like it is crazy how much we just glance over that. So that's an easy thing. I will be okay spending a little bit of my money to grab some granola bars or something at Costco and just saying hey, you're hungry, that's fine. You just gotta use those language, that language instead of any other sort of actions, to just express that you're not feeling it right now.

Speaker 2: 9:33

You need to eat something Right. I know we could talk for days about the strategies that you use and some of the best practices that you experience, but I know as your role with S-D-E-S and functional academics and talking to a lot of teachers out there. You're going to a lot of conferences. You're traveling a lot in. I'm interested to know a little bit more about your role with functional academics and how you were introduced to the program. What is, yeah, what's your journey been like?

Speaker 3: 10:06

Yeah, I was doing direct care as a BCBA and just was a little burned out on that piece and wanted to continue to parlay my experience working with students in special education into something other than direct care. So I found a job that got me in connection with Brent and Suzanne where I was really able to dive into Suzanne's program and the functional academics program really just is a whole tool set for our teachers. I like to say it's really scaffolding for our teachers. It really tells us how we can teach, it's a structure and it gives a lot of flexibility to our teachers just to be able to still teach the things they want to teach and teach in a way that's helpful for them All.

Speaker 3: 10:51

that to say, I loved the program. I wish I had it.

Speaker 2: 10:54

So organized.

Speaker 3: 10:56

Yes, layed out for you.

Speaker 3: 10:58

I've told special education directors just this week. I wish I had it because I never wanted to be the teacher or the team lead. But if someone would just say I'd said here, this is what we're working on, this is how we're doing it, I'm all for that. I just love the structure and so just fast forward as early as I guess. Last April I had a chance to really come on board and join the team and it's really just taken off from there. So I am doing all the traveling, all the overviews of the program with different directors across the US and just try to give directors and teachers and coordinators just more resources. Our program is really a niche program and there's a lot of people that are always looking for something else, right.

Speaker 2: 11:42

So if I can share it, I'd be more than happy to and I know for me, when I just my experience in the classroom, I always struggled so much with the data collection piece and I think in the program it's really well laid out and I know you're aware of some really pretty awesome tools that are coming down the line, going to come into the program in the next few months even, and so I wanted to, from your background in being a BCBA and just behavioral analyst, what does that look like for you? But does it? It sounds exciting to me. I just want to see what you're thinking from your perspective.

Speaker 3: 12:23

No, I love it. The simplicity of the program in and of itself is fantastic. It's really. It's something that the data collection piece is something we should all be doing. It is very difficult to do in a special education classroom.

Speaker 3: 12:37

It just is. So when I talk to teachers and directors, I tell them hey, this is a part of our program, but remember, I'm not asking you to do all of it all at once. Just a little bit each day. Just be consistent. Like I mentioned, and just so they know and everyone else knows, we're trying to make it even easier for you to collect data. So that's the nice part. We're not doing anything that's wildly different, other than just condensing it into a format that says OK, this was pretty easy, I can run my lesson, I can take my data and then we can go to the next activity, whatever that may be. So just trying to make it to where teachers can teach, enjoy the teaching aspect of it and not be as adverse to just collecting some data there as they run their lessons.

Speaker 2: 13:21

And then to inform where you're going for the next step, or to be able to report out to your IEP teams. Even include your students in that. Look where you're going Like you're doing so well. Like out this line. This graph is amazing. It's going to be a really awesome thing. I wanted to highlight that.

Speaker 3: 13:39

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Coming down the line. It's coming soon.

Speaker 3: 13:42

It's really cool. I don't know specifically how much I could say about it, but we are rolling it out, we're working on it. But it is pretty insane how young some of the students that I've worked with who really understand that at the end of the day I want my graph to go up and really involved, so we can really get our students involved with it too and get them on board regardless of age. They know I've had kids very excited.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Oh, my graph went up.

Speaker 3: 14:09

my graph went up and that's all they were worried about where we see some of the even bigger accomplishments that they're making too.

Speaker 2: 14:15

And it helps them to be involved in that self-directed learning. They take on their own education process, and involve themselves in the IEP process, which I absolutely love.

Speaker 3: 14:28

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Good stuff, good stuff. Tucker, thank you so much for your time with us today. I'm going to just remind some people real quick of some of the things that we talked about, but I know you're off to go do, hopefully, something really fun today.

Speaker 3: 14:43

At the end of your day. Yeah, I think today I'm just relaxing. I got back from Austin yesterday, so a lot of outreach today and now it's time to just rest a little bit. So I'm very excited to sit down a little.

Speaker 2: 14:56

We'll have to talk pickleball soon.

Speaker 3: 14:58

Yes, let's do it. That's the other side that I enjoy.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Exactly Okay. Thanks so much for the talk today. It's great to talk to you.

Speaker 3: 15:05

Yes, thank you so much for having me have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 2: 15:09

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