PBIS

For those of you that don't know, I have 3 children, a girl and 2 boys (born chronologically in that order). Both boys are autistic. (I'm gonna let that sink in for a second.) Both of them. Now, I'm not going to write about autism, or the autism spectrum, or any of the events surrounding our discovery of their "gifts", or my speculation on the wild increase in autism spectrum disorder diagnoses over the last 15 years (something like 80% higher than in the previous decade).

Nope. I'm going to write about serving on committees. Community service in its most primal form. You see, my wife is both by nature and by education (and soon vocation) a teacher. She's very social in that setting and recognized within her field as smart and the kind of person who should either: a)be in charge or b)serve on that committee. Those in the education profession are frequently asked to serve on committees.

Several years back she was asked to serve on a committee in the role of a parent - specifically the parent of a "Special Ed" child. As she became "committeed out", she decided to quit the committee. At the same time, I was lamenting my existence, something I try to do periodically to keep my life in balance. The thought of that day was - am I being a good role model for my children? From their perspective, I get up in the morning, make their lunches (which they probably didn't know), go to work, come home, and put them to bed while Mom was at some meeting or other. Then repeat. Pretty much the role of secondary caregiver.

While most fathers (because expectations for fatherhood are significantly lower than those for motherhood - for many fathers it is perfectly acceptable to send child support and be able to pick out their children in a police lineup) would consider this perfectly acceptable, I did not. Any idiot can do that (side note: for those idiots out there doing just that - no offense intended.) But I always wanted to be more than that.

"Honey," I said, "what if I join the committee in your place? We could tag team this committee." Then the kids would see their Dad giving something back to the community. That's just what I was looking for.

So what I'm going to write about today is my experience on said committee. The purpose of the committee is to act a parent advisors to the [School District] Director of Special Services. We meet for 2 hours once per month. You have to have a child in Special Services to be invited to participate. All schools and all ages are represented.

So I am just completing my second year on this committee, which I believe will be my last year on this committee. I may go into that later - if I remember and the posting doesn't get extremely long (too late for that). Let me summarize some of the more interesting ... things I've learned:

1. Our educational system is more rife with acronyms and buzzwords than corporate America. I didn't think it was possible, but it is. For example, who can guess what PBIS stands for? Anyone? Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems. It turns out (in Minnesota, anyway) that PBIS is a "best practice" for behavior issues. In layman's terms, rewarding good behavior is more effective than punishing bad behavior. Only in our meeting it took about 20 minutes of discussion to make sure everyone understood that.

I won't bother you with some of the others - NCLB, IDEAIA, IEP, EBD, ASD, LAC, ESAC, PACER, etc. It's just too much.

2. Studying the dynamics of a meeting is fascinating. Our fearless chairman is from corporate America and runs the meeting like I would run it. (For those of you who don't know - I run a lot of meetings, and, if I must say so, am pretty darn good at it.)

The dynamics of a meeting and the amount that the team can accomplish depend quite a bit on how well the team is acquainted. Unlike a work environment where people spend 40+ hours a week with each other and develop familial relationships, this group only meets monthly. I've bumped into some of these people at the grocery store and didn't remember them, for example. The result is that the "talkers talk and the quite folk listen to them talk", and it is the job of the chairman to solicit input from the listeners and to limit the talkers so someone else has a turn. At least that's what I think. Perhaps that's a style thing, but it seems to me that if the purpose of the committee is for parents to give feedback to the Director, than the Director would want to hear as many voices as possible.

Last night, outside of the chairman, 2 people dominated the conversation. Absolutely dominated. Like they've been doing for the 2 years I've been participating. (side note: my wife tends to be one of these talkers, so I bet when she served on the committee 3 people dominated the conversation). Anyway, I went the entire duration of the meeting without speaking. So did at least 4 other people by my count. So, there were 15 people in the room - a chairman, the Director, and 13 parents. Five of us did not speak. Two people said 90% of the rest. The other 6 contributed 10%. So essentially the Director heard 2 opinions last night. I don't believe that is the point of the committee.

3. I just have to share this one sentence for you to understand the difficulty of working with, and providing "advice" or opinions to, the Director. A direct quote:

"We need to look at some best practices methodologies systemically."

What does that mean? Is the Director paid syllablocally? I just made that word up. Hehehe. Though it does seem fitting for the occasion.

Perhaps in my next post I'll write about what I think can be done better - to "get on the solution side", as we say in corporate America. But for now, I'm done.