Question 2: Can you give a specific example where something didn't work?

Question 2: Can you give a specific example where something that the board required didn't work, but the board didn't know about it? (this question is paraphrased.)

Answer: Off the top of my head, no, and if I had a student example I would be barred from sharing it for reasons of confidentiality. But wait. Yes, there is an example. We have this procedure called RTI. I've alternately heard it called Response to Intervention and here in our school system, Response to Instruction. The idea is that you have a student who is struggling, who needs help, and you as the teacher go to the counselor or the administrators and ask, "what can we do?"

And instead of being given the help you need to help this student, you're given a procedure that you have to follow where, if you're any good as a teacher at all, you've already done steps 1-3 on your own. Steps 1-3 give specific types and examples of interventions you can take. Call home, offer tutoring, extend time, monitor homework, modify assignments, etc., etc. But now there's this line drawn in the sand, and in order to "document" that you're trying to help this student, you have to go back to step 1? You're a good teacher, and that's why you're here. You've been trained and you've done this for years, and you've already made all the modifications and done all the little interventions and realized that they are not working. So you ask for help and now, to formalize the process, instead of being able to sign off that you've tried those interventions, you're told to start from scratch for two or three weeks and let's see how they work and then go to the next step.

WHAT THE HECK?!?! You're a good teacher! You don't go to the administration every time a kid isn't doing his or her homework, you work through the countless little things in your bag of tricks to get the kid back on track! Now you've reached a point where you say, "look, we need Suzy Q and Junior to be successful, and we need to do more," and you're actually told to step a few paces backwards? And the clock is ticking, and these students are falling farther and farther off course.

No, that doesn't make sense. And the board needs to know it. Why can't we as teachers do something along the lines of signing an affidavit that we have already tried the following interventions, believe we are now at step (blank) of the process, and are seeking increased support? We are all here because we want to help our students succeed and this RTI procedure, while it purports to do that in a formal, documentable manner, actually does quite the opposite when you get down to the nitty-gritty: it imposes an unnecessary wait period, and unnecessary redundancies that only harm the student in question.

So, there you have it. RTI is an example of something that can be fixed with a little common sense and -- again -- a little input from teachers on what is, and is not, working. It is broken, yes, but it is precisely the kind of thing that candid input "from the troops" would identify and be able to solve virtually instantly.