Early in my years as a director, I walked into a budget meeting ready to make the case for another speech-language pathologist. I had so many stories to relay to my leadership group: a provider who was eating lunch in her car so she could finish progress reports; a student whose sessions kept getting cancelled. Honestly, too many to count. I told those stories with emotion and conviction, and nobody disagreed with me. But, ultimately, the stories fell on deaf ears.
A year later I went back with a different approach. I brought one page: the minutes our students were owed each week, the minutes our providers could deliver in a contracted week, and the gap between them. The same people who had gone quiet started asking questions. Without much emotion, and certainly with less emotion - and exhaustion - as the previous year, we got the position our department desperately needed.
For a long time I thought the difference was that data and numbers are simply more persuasive than stories. But Rebecca Cann gave me a better explanation, and I want to share it with you this week.
Three dimensions of trust
Rebecca is a speech-language pathologist and the founder of The Inclusive Practice. Her work, the Dimensions of Trust, describes trust in three layers:
One-dimensional (1D) trust is group trust. It is the trust that your safety, your boundaries and the group's norms will be respected. In a 1D space, we share only what we think the group will accept.
Two-dimensional (2D) trust is opinion trust. It lets us share opinions, preferences and perspectives that go beyond the group's comfort zone.
Three-dimensional (3D) trust is emotional trust. It invites vulnerability, honesty and the courage to share our values and feelings.
Rebecca makes a point I now reference any chance I can get. Every school runs on two sets of 1D norms at once: 1) the explicit ones - what the handbook and the mission statement say, and 2) the implicit ones - what the building actually enforces. Who gets interrupted. Whose ideas get credited. Who is in the room when real decisions get made. When those two sets don't match, trust gets complicated almost immediately.
In the example of my budget meeting story above, my stories asked the room for 3D trust: believe me, feel this with me. But that room of my colleagues was at 1D. The people in it trusted me to follow the norms of a budget meeting, and nothing more yet. An emotional appeal in a 1D space doesn't fail because people don't care. It fails because it asks for more trust than the room has built.
The one-page sheet worked because a fact everyone can check is safe at 1D. It is predictable. It doesn't depend on whose side you're on. It respects the norm. And once a room agrees on the facts, it has something to build 2D and 3D trust on.
A fact every leadership room can check
Here is one shared fact for this week. Each year, states report to the federal government how many special education teachers they employ and how many students with IEPs they serve. Divide one by the other and you get a rough picture of how far each teacher is stretched.
State | Students with IEPs per special education teacher (FTE) | Rank of 51 (1 = fewest students per teacher) | Teachers not fully certified |
|---|---|---|---|
New York | 9.4 | 3 | 18.2% |
Vermont | 11.2 | 6 | 11.7% |
New Jersey | 12.2 | 10 | 0.0% |
Connecticut | 13.8 | 13 | 6.0% |
Rhode Island | 15.2 | 19 | 0.1% |
Maine | 16.7 | 27 | 2.2% |
New Hampshire | 17.1 | 31 | 0.0% |
North Carolina | 18.0 | 35 | 5.1% |
Texas | 20.4 | 42 | 24.7% |
Massachusetts | 21.7 | 45 | 11.2% |
United States | 16.0 | 9.2% |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, IDEA Section 618 personnel and child count data, 2023-24, ages 5 (in kindergarten) through 21, as compiled in the Special Education Observatory. This is students with IEPs per special education teacher FTE, not caseload: it leaves out related service providers, and states count and certify personnel differently. A 0.0% means the state reported no teachers without full certification. Ranks are among the 50 states and DC.
Three things surprised me
Massachusetts ranks 45th. Massachusetts has about 176,900 students with IEPs and about 8,150 special education teacher FTE, or 21.7 students for every teacher. The national figure is 16.0. In a state that leads the country on so many education measures, only six states report more students per special education teacher.
More teachers is not the same as more certified teachers. New York has one of the lowest ratios in the country, 9.4, and nearly one in five of its special education teachers is not fully certified. Texas has 24.7% not fully certified. Across all 51, the ratio and the certification rate barely move together.
The same number can be read two ways. A union rep can read 21.7 as proof that teachers are overloaded. A business manager can read it as a sign that Massachusetts identifies more students. Both readings are possible from one fact. That is exactly why, at 1D, the room has to agree on what a number means before anyone argues about what to do with it.
Facts can build trust, or they can control
There is a caution in Rebecca's work that matters here. She describes connecting behaviors and controlling behaviors, and she is clear that a direct conversation can be either. A number used to win an argument, to corner someone or to close a question is a controlling move, even when the number is true. A number shared so everyone can see the same picture is a connecting one.
Her rule for hard conversations is to name the behavior, not the person. For data, I'd put it this way: name the number, not the person. "Our providers are scheduled for 112% of their contracted week" opens a conversation. "Your team isn't managing its time" ends one.
Questions to sit with
What dimension of trust is your leadership team operating at right now? Not the one you hope for. The one people actually act on in meetings.
Where do your explicit and implicit norms differ? If your district says it values every provider's voice, who actually speaks in your meetings, and who stays quiet?
When you bring a concern forward, what are you asking for? If it's empathy, does the room have the trust to give it yet? If not, what fact would let them meet you halfway?
Which of your numbers do people already agree on? Start there. A shared fact is often the first piece of 2D trust.
A free way to check the weather in your building
Rebecca built a tool for exactly this question. The School Trust Forecast is a five-minute screener for principals and directors. You answer a few honest questions about your building, and it reads your trust across all three dimensions and gives you a forecast:
Storm: take cover; the impact is real.
Fog: low visibility.
Clearing: the sky is opening.
Greenhouse: things grow here, regardless of the outside weather.
Each forecast comes with a short reading, a next step and resources matched to where you are. It is a reflective screener, not a normed or validated assessment, and your answers stay in your browser. If you want more voices than your own, Rebecca also offers a Trust Audit for your whole team.
Try this with your team
Take the School Trust Forecast yourself and write down your forecast.
Open special education staffing by state in the Observatory and find your state's ratio.
Pick one number from your own district, such as service minutes owed per week or open positions, and write one sentence that says only what it measures.
At your next team meeting, share the definition first and the number second. Ask the group whether they agree on what it means before discussing what to do.
Notice what happens. If the room moves from facts to opinions, that is 2D trust starting to form.
Free tools you can use today
The School Trust Forecast, Rebecca's five-minute screener for building leaders.
Special education staffing by state and state and district pages in the Special Education Observatory, with every figure cited to its source. No sign-up needed.
The Measurement Gap in Six Minutes, on why caseload counts miss the real workload.
The Workload Census, a four-minute anonymous survey for providers. It turns individual weeks into a shared fact.
The First 90 Days as a Student Services Director, for anyone new to the role and still learning the norms of a new building.
One more thing
I'd love to know what your forecast was. Hit reply and tell me the weather in your building, and what one fact you think your team could agree on. I read every reply, and with your permission, Rebecca and I will share what we learn, without names, in a future issue.
Thank you for reading, and for the work you do for students every day.
~Eric