Are you - and your students - actually getting the full benefit of your MTSS system?

I’ve been sitting with that question ever since attending several breakout sessions at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago.

You know that uncomfortable moment when you think you’ve got a solid grasp on best practice…
…and then new research gently (or not so gently) taps you on the shoulder and says, “It’s time to rethink.”

That’s where I am right now.

“You’re not the boss of me!”

Where have you heard that before?

Between siblings negotiating household chores?
Playground power struggles?
A defiant student refusing to comply with school rules?

How about silently inside your own head when a colleague tells you what you should or should not do?

It’s a primitive instinct to resist being controlled by someone else.

When a webinar led by Dr. Andrea Terrero Gabbadon referenced Doris Santoro’s Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay, I immediately pulled the book off my shelf to revisit.

One line stopped me:

“Teacher retention issues can’t be fixed with a checklist of action steps. It’s an ecosystem problem.”

That sentence didn’t just resonate, it reframed everything.

The same question keeps popping up in conversations everywhere I go - online and in person:

If students use AI, are they cheating?

It reminds me of the same debates when we started seeing hand-held calculators. Was it cheating if students used them in class or at home?

Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked closely with school and district leaders who came to me with a commitment to improve their special education systems and student outcomes. They all want to create change with minimal disruption. They also want to make the best use of their resources (time, budget, effort), but every time I agree with them on these mistakes, we end up regretting it. 

Having been part of every one of these mistakes, I’d like to spare you…

Every school has an improvement plan, but let’s get real - humans resist change. We all hold on to ways of operating even when we may not be getting the results we want. How many people persist with “bad habits” in spite of best intentions?

Do you begin your new year with a resolution?

There’s a lot of evidence (in my own life too) that New Year’s resolutions are chosen from a “should” in your life. Whether it’s, “I should do regular workouts,” or, “I should spend more time with my family,” or, “I should manage my budget better,” resolutions that are motivated by wanting to get better seldom last.

But this year, I’m resolving to get better at giving praise.

Can I ask you a question? 

What can you do to make 2026 the year that changed everything - the year that you made progress on your dreams of impact for students with special needs? 

When Public Law 94-142 passed in 1975, everything changed. Students with disabilities were finally guaranteed access to an appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. It was my fifth year as a 7th grade English teacher, and I remember staring at my roster and wondering how I could teach them.

Fast-forward 50 years and somehow… we’re still wrestling with the same questions.

I listened to a thought provoking podcast this morning that left me pondering about where uncertainty and “I don’t know” belong in our commitment to create inclusive school communities.