Who is Matthew Snapp?

A veteran management consultant, Matthew Snapp earned his doctorate in school psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. During his diverse career, he spent a decade with the Austin Independent School District as Director of Counseling and Guidance and later as Director of Student Development. In 2011, Mr. Snapp presented on School Psychologists and Systems at a professional conference in Vellore, India, in which he distinguished between school psychologists childfocused and systems-focused roles. He recounted his personal experience serving multiple rural districts and providing individualized student testing, as well as group and individual counseling and teacher consultation. When he accepted his position as Director of Counseling & Guidance with the much larger, urban Austin Independent School District, Mr. Snapps responsibilities shifted. He was hired to direct the department which included psychological assessments, determining students eligibility for special education, as well as the school district's elementary and secondary counseling programs. However, he began to notice the larger issues that were affecting the district --- such as the challenges presented by desegregation, drug use, and reactionary administrative leadership focused more on punishment than behavior change. Mr. Snapp helped to create a more collaborative, responsive approach to these problems by engaging the students themselves in changing school culture. This broader, system-wide approach to counseling and school psychology services benefited both students and the district overall.