The 2024 Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs (TSD) Conference in Frisco, Texas featured a full schedule of educational sessions, empowering keynotes, hands-on training, a product demonstration and onsite Ride and Drive event and more! Check out these daily recap videos from the conference.
FRISCO, Texas — Craig Beaver of Beaverton School District near Portland, Oregon, was awarded the STN Transportation Director of the Year award. Behavior specialist Patrick Mulick presented a morning keynote exploring strategies for helping students with autism bring out the best in themselves every day.
Offsite, the roadeo and training competition and the Hands-on School Bus Evacuations for Students with Special Needs & Preschoolers class took place at Frisco ISD locations.
Sessions continued on topics including positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS), parent communication, school bus Wi-Fi, student transition plans, wheelchair crash test research, the impact of driver and budget shortages, understanding the federally recognized 13 disabilities, and more.
FRISCO, Texas — School transportation professionals at every level can ease the extreme fear and stress that students with autism experience each day and help them reach their full potential by shifting conventional thinking about service delivery.
That was the message from keynote speaker Patrick Mulick to start Saturday’s session at TSD Conference. Accomplishing those goals are part of the transportation department’s duty but will create a tremendous sense of joy and accomplishment said Mulick, who is also the director of student engagement for the Auburn School District in Washington and a board certified behavior analyst.
“We get to be part of their stories. We get to help shape their worlds and help unlock the autism they carry around with them. I feel such joy when I reflect on the faces that I’ve had a change to impact and I look at the work ahead and I look at the faces we have now,” said Mulick who relayed the stories of students that he played has helped over the years. “For you, you have faces, you have names in front of you every single day. What you do for them matters. So, feel that sense of purpose but that sense of responsibility that we need to step up and do what’s right for these kids that not given everything they need for life. These kids need us to be at our best in supporting them. So, continue to go the extra mile for them. They’re certainly worth it.”
Mulick, a popular speaker delivering his fourth keynote address at a TSD Conference, said one reason his remarks focused on autism was due to its rising prevalence. In 1975, one in 5,000 children. “Today, it’s one in 36. This data is four years old and there’s great variance from state to state. California is one in 26,” he stated.
He encouraged his audience to remember that every person with autism is an individual and they should never have a preconceived based on well-known people on the autism spectrum, such as Elon Musk, or someone they personally know. “If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism. That’s it,” he added. “We need to be careful not to categorize persons with autism.”
Mulick said that he spent the summer of 2000 working with a non-verbal, 4-year-old girl with autism who had behavioral issues related to her disability. Within weeks, she began to speak three-word sentences. Children with autism “know what they want to say but can’t get the words out,” Mulick said.
“There’s a person in there dying to get out but they do not understand the world and the world does not understand them. When she could speak, it gave her autonomy,” he said. “What I was able to do was unlock autism,” he continued.
The experience convinced him that he wanted to devote his life to helping autistic children succeed.
Mulick explained that the education system has broken down numerous barriers to equality over the decades. However, he added, considerable work remains in the realm of services for children with disabilities and special needs.
“For (them), the conversation goes to the kid as the problem,” he said.
Noting that school buses have been redesigned to accommodate students with accessibility challenges, he insists school transportation needs to be rethought and redesigned to better serve children with special needs, including autism.
Mulick cited a quote from psychologist and author Ross W. Greene, “Behaviorally challenging kids are challenging because they’re lacking the skills to not be challenging.”
He added, “When we think of students with autism on our bus, instead of asking, ‘What’s wrong with them?’ We really need to be asking, ‘What are they experiencing and how can we help them?’”
He shared a 12-point strategy to improve the transportation process and everyday life for students with autism:
1. Get out of our silos. School personnel and transportation departments can and should use all appropriate technology tools to communicate proactively and more effectively when problems arise. It is not helpful for drivers to receive a 26-page individualized education program. Instead, drivers need to receive a student transportation plan with the necessary information to help them safely transport students and support positive behavior.
2. Visualize expectations with pictures. Students with autism may miss words but a laminated sheet with pictures of instructions will provide a child with guidance and reassurance day in and day out. Mulick shared the story of a boy with autism who had been hitting himself because of the stress of his daily school bus rides. Individualized instructions for “show safe hands” included a picture of a hand firmly planted on the bus seat. The boy drew an outline of his hand on his usual seat, too. “Yes, that’s graffiti but it’s much better than him hitting himself,” Mulick said.
3. Give voice. “Behavior is communication. If you don’t give your student a voice, then you leave them with no other choice.”
4. Engage. Give children with autism time to process information. Always state their name first and be careful with phrasing.
5. Value the routine. Surprises are scary. “If it is routine, then it is predictable. If it’s predictable, it’s reliable. If it’s reliable then it can be trusted. And if it can be trusted then it’s safe,” he said. For that reason, don’t tell a child on a random day that they have to sit in a different seat.
6. Warn about changes. Let the child with autism know well in advance if the school bus driver is going on vacation or there’s a change of bus number, assigned seat, route or other riders.
7. Get them engaged. The biggest transition and potential anxiety in an autistic child’s day is the ride to and from school. Ensuring they have something to engage with is a source of comfort. “The engaged mind forgets to misbehave.”
8. Be careful with the collaboration at the handoff. Avoid chit chat. If the conversation is about the child, bring them into the conversation. Even if they’re nonverbal, don’t pretend they aren’t there.
9. Be Mindful of unique fears and fixations.
10. Reframe deficits into strengths. Convert lessons into child’s favorite fixation. Mulick shared several effective examples, including creating a “Jedi Tool Kit” that provided a range of de-escalation actions for a child fascinated with “Star Wars.”
11. Use today’s knowledge for today’s challenges. “When we know better, we can do better. There are old ways we need to move away from,” he said. Mulick shared that when he took a job in 2011 there was a 1980s-era cassette tape in his desk. Several in the room gasped when he showed a slide with its title: “Working with Angry, Rage-filled Children.” He noted that the increase in board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) positions – from 780 in 2010 to 65,366 in 2023 – is an example of a new resource that can be accessed.
12. Don’t force it. Forcing a child with autism to do something they don’t want to do will often lead to behavioral outbursts. “If it’s not going to work for the student, it’s not going to work for the student.”)
Mulick offered one final piece of advice: “When you work with kids with autism, you should be learning with them every day.”
The audience listens as Patrick Mulick presents on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. Photo by Vincent Rios Creative.
A student with autism was allegedly refused transportation to and from school after videos of a bus aide hitting the student were discovered, causing the girl to miss two days of school a week, reported Times Union.
The student’s mother, Felecia Powers, is filing a lawsuit against the Lansingburgh Central School District, located north of Albany, New York, contractor First Student, the bus driver, and the aide after reporting concerns for her daughter’s wellbeing onboard the bus. The 16-year-old student reportedly attends a day school in Massachusetts that requires a 70-minute bus ride each way. Powers told news sources that her daughter has a mental age of 1 1/2 to 2 years old and wears a five-point harness in her bus seat.
Officials reportedly found footage from January showing a bus aide hitting the student twice, while she was strapped in her seat. The aide claimed the student struck her first.
Powers met with a new bus driver and aide who were assigned to her daughter’s route, but she told local news that she didn’t feel confident that the behavior would not be repeated and expressed renewed concern for her daughter’s safety.
Following the lawsuit filed by Powers, First Student stopped taking the student to school. Powers reportedly drove her daughter for the remainder of the school year, and Lansingburgh CSD provided a different bus company for the summer.
The superintendent for Lansingburgh, Dr. Antonio Abitabile, reportedly did not know First Student would no longer be transporting the student until a week before the start of the current school year. But he stated that the district is working with First Student to resume bus service. The district has also reached out to other bus companies in the area but has not yet found transportation for the student as of this report.
Powers’ attorney told local news that the district’s attorney has communicated that they are aware it is the district’s responsibility to provide transportation but still working on it. The news report said that Powers is currently driving her daughter to school on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. She works the other two days of the week. She says her daughter wants to be in school and that she is frustrated by the delay in transportation service.
Tony and Ryan discuss recent news headlines that underscore the need for training and safety focus, as well as what OEM leadership changes and the upcoming U.S. presidential election mean for school bus manufacturing.
Jo Mascorro, upcoming TSD keynote speaker and an independent consultant with over 46 years of experience in the field of education, addresses treating the bus as an extension of the classroom, utilizing proper staff training and communication, and supporting and training students on good bus behavior.
Behavioral analyst and educational consultant Patrick Mulick has been a fan-favorite at the School Transportation News conferences, most recently presenting at the STN EXPO East Conference in 2023 and the 2021 TSD Conference.
Mulick’s keynote address at the TSD Conference this year will focus on students with autism and how to best support them onboard the school bus and equip student transportation professionals to provide that support. With the rising number of autism diagnoses among students, this session will contain timely information for all school districts. Mulick, whose day job is the director of student engagement for the Auburn School District in Washington State, will address common triggers and challenging areas such as transitions, environmental stimulation, creating routines and substitutions.
During a recent episode of the School Transportation Nation podcast, he said he is looking to unlock autism for student transporters. He will also be addressing communication discrepancies between transportation and school administration, linking the school bus to the classroom as a key part of the student’s educational day.
Mulick’s educational background is in special education and behavior analysis, leading to his time as a teacher for a variety of ages, from pre-K to high school. He has continued to be an advocate for students with disabilities and special needs through his nationwide speaking engagements and trainings.
Save $100 on conference registration with the Early Bird Discount, valid through Oct. 4. Visit tsdconference.com to register and view the conference agenda. The TSD Conference will be held Nov. 9 through Nov. 12.
Discussions on training and efforts to properly care for and support students with special needs. The TSD Conference held Nov. 7-12, 2024 in Frisco, Texas, has the latest in guidance and hands-on experiences in this area.
Board Certified Behavior Analyst Patrick Mulick, the director of student engagement for the Auburn School District in Washington state and an upcoming TSD Conference keynote speaker, discusses how transportation staff can be informed and provide holistic care for students with special needs, specifically autism.
Login
