If you’ve ever walked into an IEP meeting with a clinic-style treatment plan and watched eleven people stare back at you, this series is for you.
Most BCBAs learned the trade in a clinic or in clients’ homes, where services usually come with a clear funding source, a defined treatment plan, a supervising BCBA, a team of RBTs, and a family that asked for ABA in the first place.
BCBAs who move into a school setting often find that one, or all, of these features look profoundly different, and those differences can lead to practical and ethical challenges. Schools run on different rules. Your “client” is a student whose services come from an IEP team decision instead of a prior authorization. The people implementing your plan may be a first-year teacher, a paraprofessional with no behavior training, and a substitute who started this morning. A principal, a school psychologist, a speech-language pathologist, the family, and maybe an outside clinic provider all have a say in what happens, and they don’t always agree.
None of this makes school-based practice worse. It does make it different in ways that can catch a well-trained BCBA off guard, and some of those differences raise real ethical questions. Who is your client when the district is your employer? What do you do when a plan needs staffing the building doesn’t have? How do you meet supervision requirements when the people carrying out your interventions aren’t RBTs? What changes when FERPA, not HIPAA, governs the records?
Many school BCBAs work through these questions alone. A lot of them are the only behavior analyst in their building, and some are the only one in their district. That’s why we built this series!
Introducing the Series
School-Based Practice for BCBAs is a live webinar series from Dynamic Education Consulting & Solutions (DECS), a BACB Authorized Continuing Education (ACE) provider. Each session takes a practical look at the ethical and professional problems that come up when behavior analysts work inside schools, and each one leaves time to talk with colleagues who deal with the same pressures you do.
Webinar 1: School Is Not the Clinic
Moving from clinical practice to a school is harder than most people expect. Clinical services happen in a center or a home, with fewer stakeholders and a more streamlined service model. A school brings a different structure, different laws, and many more people with a stake in each decision. We believe BCBAs need specialized background knowledge to make that move well.
In this live session, you’ll learn what to expect in the school setting, how to set aside assumptions you brought from clinical work, and how to start off right in your new role. We’ll walk through seven fundamental ways school practice differs from clinical practice and what each one means for you as a practitioner, including the ethical dilemmas that come up when a clinical mindset meets a school system. We’ll also take a direct look at supervision, since school structures rarely match the supervision models BCBAs learn in clinics.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe at least seven differences between school-based and clinic-based behavior analytic practice in approach, policy, and service delivery.
- Identify ethical dilemmas that can arise when clinical practice assumptions are applied in a school setting, and connect them to relevant standards of the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.
- Explain how supervision and staff training requirements apply when interventions are carried out by school personnel such as teachers and paraprofessionals.
- Identify at least two strategies for shifting from a clinical mindset to a school-based mindset to prevent common practical and ethical problems.
Event Details
- Date: Thursday, November 19, 2026
- Time: 12:00–2:00 p.m. Pacific (PST)
- Length: 2 hours, live online
- CEUs: 1.0 Ethics and 1.0 Supervision BACB CEUs (included with registration)
- Cost: $24.99 per session ($15 through Sunday, October 25 with promo code FOUNDING15 — single sessions only) · $40 for three sessions · $75 for six sessions (Webinar 7 included at no additional charge)
- Instructor: Dr. Vanessa Tucker, BCBA-D, LBA
- Register for a single session: Register here — enter promo code FOUNDING15 at checkout for the $15 price through Sunday, October 25 at 11:55 p.m. Pacific
- Register for three sessions ($40): Register here
- Register for six sessions ($75, Webinar 7 included): Register here
You’ll need to attend the live session to receive CEUs.
ACE Provider: Dynamic Education Consulting & Solutions, LLC
ACE Provider #: OP-26-12889
For questions, help with registration, or any other information, contact Dr. Lindsay Myatich, Chief Academic Officer and ACE Coordinator for Dynamic Education Consulting & Solutions, LLC, at lmyatich@dec.solutions.
Can’t attend live? Join the on-demand list at dec.solutions. On-demand CEU courses are coming soon.
About the Instructor
Dr. Vanessa Tucker, BCBA-D, LBA, is a board certified behavior analyst (doctoral level) who practices privately with a focus on providing program supports, interventions, mentoring, and evaluations in school settings. She is also a faculty member in the University of Washington’s ABA program and at Fitchburg State University. She has been teaching and/or coordinating special education programs for 31 years and has been in the field of ABA for 14. Her primary areas of interest are the application of ABA in the school setting and behavior interventions for students with complex support needs, as well as behavioral health supports for adults with IDD.
Vanessa earned her general and special education certification in 1995 from Western Washington University, her master’s in Low Incidence Disabilities in 2002 from the University of Washington, and her Ph.D. in Applied Behavior Analysis and Autism from the University of Washington in 2009. She has worked as a special education teacher, program coordinator, and consultant.
Disclosures
Dynamic Education Consulting & Solutions, LLC (DECS) is a BACB Authorized Continuing Education (ACE) Provider, #OP-26-12889, and the ACE Provider for this event. The BACB does not sponsor, approve, or endorse this event, its instructor, or its content.
The instructor, Dr. Vanessa Tucker, BCBA-D, LBA, is an employee of DECS and contributed to the development of the School-Based BCBA Toolkit. In addition to continuing education, DECS provides consultation, training, and other behavior-analytic services to schools and organizations, and some examples in this event may reference DECS services.
After the instructional portion ends, DECS will briefly present the School-Based BCBA Toolkit, a set of DECS-developed resources available for purchase. This presentation is not part of the CE content, and no CEUs are awarded for it. Purchase is not required to attend or to earn CEUs. Neither Dr. Tucker nor DECS has any other affiliation with companies, products, or services featured in this event.
What's Coming Next in the Series
Webinar 2: Unpacking the Culture of “School” for the Behavior Analyst
Thursday, January 21, 2027 | 2 CEUs: General Learning
Schools run on federal and state laws, a layered staff structure, and a special education process that look very different from clinical practice. This session walks you through the “culture of school,” from how decisions get made to how the IEP team works, so you can find your footing as a valuable member of the school community.
Participants will:
- Identify and discuss how schools operate within federal and state laws and policies.
- Compare and contrast these policies with those that govern clinical practice.
- Explore the roles and expectations of school staff and how they relate to supervision and delegation.
- Explore the requirements of the special education process, including the main tenets of IDEA and terminology related to service provision.
Webinar 3: Effective Practice in Schools, Part 1 — Roles, Responsibilities, and Avoiding Mistakes
Thursday, February 18, 2027 | 2 CEUs: 1 Ethics, 1 Supervision
School roles are defined largely by state and federal law, and misunderstanding them is a common source of avoidable mistakes. Using real cases, we’ll clarify who does what in a school and how to prevent the ethical dilemmas that come from applying clinical assumptions.
Participants will:
- Define the roles of common school service providers (administrators, certificated staff, related service providers, non-certificated staff) and how supervision, delegation, and evaluation work in schools.
- Identify their own role(s) within the school system, such as participating on an IEP team.
- Apply proactive and reactive approaches to cases presented as avoidable ethical dilemmas.
Webinar 4: Effective Practice in Schools, Part 2 — Avoiding Scope Creep: Understanding Your Limits
Thursday, March 18, 2027 | 2 CEUs: 1 Ethics, 1 General Learning
In schools, many professionals work side by side, each with their own scope of practice, and the lines can blur quickly. This case-based session looks at how BCBAs can apply their scope alongside others’ and avoid “scope creep.”
Participants will:
- Review the term scope of practice and how it looks in clinical vs. school practice.
- Review how scope of practice is often limited in schools, across all providers, by the need to promote access to school.
- Analyze cases to determine how to stay within, or return to, one’s scope in ways that strengthen teams and instructional practice.
Webinar 5: Effective Practice in Schools, Part 3 — Collaboration Is an Inside-Out Job: Working with External Behavior Analysts and Other Providers
Thursday, April 15, 2027 | 2 CEUs: 1 Ethics, 1 General Learning
Collaborating with outside providers can strengthen a student’s programming, but it can also leave families caught in an “us vs. them” dynamic. Through case-based scenarios, we’ll explore how to build trust with outside BCBAs and other professionals while keeping the student at the center.
Participants will:
- Explore collaboration within the school system and how it is used to address behavior problems.
- Describe how conflict occurs, what leaves parents “stuck in the middle,” and how an “us vs. them” belief takes hold.
- Apply strategies for building trust on both sides through effective collaboration, problem-solving, and information sharing.
Webinar 6: Effective Practice in Schools, Part 4 — Family Collaboration as a School-Based BCBA
Thursday, May 20, 2027 | 2 CEUs: General Learning
BCBAs with a clinical background often find that the school role looks very different from the “family clinician” role they’re used to. This session explores practical ways to support families within school culture while building trust, skills, and long-term relationships.
Participants will:
- Discuss similarities and differences between school and clinic family collaboration, including the expectation of more “collaborators.”
- Explore strategies to manage parent expectations and build trusting relationships with families.
- Explore strategies to build skills with families while avoiding a “family clinician” approach more appropriately held by outside BCBAs.
Webinar 7: Effective Practice in Schools, Part 5 — A Crosswalk of the Ethics Code to Actual School Practice
Thursday, June 17, 2027 | 12:00–2:00 p.m. Pacific | 2 BACB CEUs (type TBD)
Included at no additional charge with the six-session bundle.
The BACB Ethics Code doesn’t always line up neatly with school policies, laws, and practices. This session compares the Code with real school practice, with a focus on consent, supervision, and when to step away from a case (and what to do when you can’t).
Participants will:
- Explore the crosswalk and identify potential dilemmas using case-based scenarios.
- Apply strategies for navigating these scenarios in ways that maintain both their ethical responsibilities and their policy and legal responsibilities in the school setting.
You Don't Have to Figure This Out Alone
Every webinar in this series is built around the problems school-based BCBAs actually bring to us. If you want the thinking between sessions, join our mailing list and we’ll email you the Role Clarity One-Pager — a single page on who does what when a behavior plan runs through a school team.
You’ll also start receiving The 3 B’s, our newsletter of timely, practical resources for school-based practice. Unsubscribe anytime. The Role Clarity One-Pager is free to anyone who provides an email address, and signing up is not required to attend a webinar or to earn CEUs.
