School Woes
with Allison Pfersich
Behavior Bites Podcast - Ep41June 5, 2024Are schools set up to be successfully inclusive?
How often are schools failing their students and families?
During today’s meal— I speak with a school BCBA about the successes and failures in the school system, work / life balance, and hobbies as a way to practice self care.
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Amuse-Bouche
What made you decide to move from Massachusetts to Seattle?
Appetizers
How did you get into Behavior Analysis?
What’s something you wish you could have told yourself when getting started?
Palate Cleanser
Describe an ideal weekend— what are you doing and what are you eating?
Entrees
When was a time you failed, and what did you learn from that experience?
If there were no barriers or constraints, what would be your dream project?
Dessert
How do you practice self-care and balance life/work?
Excerpts from the Episode
(*Paraphrased highlights)-
Find your community. This job is hard, it’s draining, but it’s amazing if you can make it work. It won’t work without a community/support network.
Also, take all of your PTO, always, and don't apologize for it. If you can, find a position where the company respects your non-work time and your work-life balance. I worked for way too long at a company that expected me to be on call from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM daily.
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I don’t know if it’s a failure exactly, or if it’s something I even have the capacity to talk about yet, but losing two students within 6 weeks this winter threw me for such a loop. The way things were handled when the first student passed exposed such ableism in the school district. I knew the ableism was there, but I experienced it from people that I didn’t expect. It took a month for the district to notify the entire staff that the student had passed, in that notification she was labeled as being “an LRC2 student” meaning a student in our self contained program. Why did that matter?
And the second student, I do feel like I failed her. A lot of systems failed her, and I was a part of those systems. She went to 10 schools in 8 years. She was in and out of foster care. After being suspended, she ran away from home. 5 days after running away, she died of a drug overdose in a hotel.
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I would have a school. Maybe a non public agency or a charter school. I see public school not working for so many students.
Unfortunately, one of the things I see consistently getting in the way of positive student outcomes is the adult behavior. With teachers, paras, and unions it is incredibly difficult to change the adult behavior. After 3 years in the public school, I don’t think it’s possible to fix the system.
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I have hobbies. So many hobbies, perhaps too many hobbies. But I also schedule them in. I sit down on Sundays and fill out a planner for the week and I make sure I schedule in time with each of the hobbies.
I knit and I sew. Those two switch off as my artistic outlet. I run, but that’s more of a chore than a hobby— to keep me in shape for the real hobby, hiking. If I ever invite you hiking, ask so many questions before saying yes because I do 8-10 mile hikes in the Cascades like it’s just your average Saturday. And my newest hobby is aerial yoga.
ABOUT Allison
Allison Pfersich, MEd, BCBA, LBA (WA)
Born and raised in Massachusetts, I moved to Washington state in 2019. A former special educator and current BCBA in a public school district and co-chair of the ABA in Schools Committee for Washington Behavior Analysis. When I'm not working you can find me doing aerial yoga, adventuring in the mountains or at my sewing machine.
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