I went to Woodland District 50's board meeting Thursday night expecting to hear from teachers. I had originally planned to speak myself. Instead, I decided to listen, record, and give other people the microphone.
The room was crowded. Before I had made it far inside, people were approaching me to say they had watched my videos, to thank me for asking questions, and to tell me they had information they wanted to share. That's my experience of the evening, not a measure of how every person in the room felt.
The central concern I heard from teachers was not simply a disagreement over an instructional framework. It was a feeling that their professional judgment was not being heard or respected.
The dispute centers on Understanding by Design, or UbD, and the way Woodland is implementing it. But I want to make an important distinction: I'm not here to declare that UbD is good or bad, or that any particular curriculum or resource is worthless. Those are separate questions requiring evidence.
My questions are about decision-making. Who chose the approach? Why? How much input did teachers have? Who decided what training was necessary? Who is doing the training? And what evidence will show whether the initiative improves instruction?
After hearing teachers' concerns, I stayed to listen to the district's teaching-and-learning presentation and Superintendent Dr. Machak. What struck me was how strongly the conversation appeared to emphasize district-office direction, ongoing coaching, and training teachers to implement the district's instructional expectations.
I heard an account of teaching in which the district office sets the direction, principals carry it out, and teachers are coached toward the prescribed approach. That is my interpretation of the presentation, not a verbatim quotation from any official.
And that is the contradiction I want to explore.
When teachers say they don't feel treated like professionals, is more centrally directed training really an answer to that concern? Or does it demonstrate the very problem they're describing?
I'm not arguing that teachers should never receive coaching or professional development. Good teaching requires learning, practice, feedback, and continuous improvement. I'm asking who determines what improvement means and whether the people doing the teaching have meaningful authority in that process.
There's a difference between helping teachers become better at their craft and training them to demonstrate compliance with somebody else's prescribed process.
I also listened to a substantial discussion about student attendance. My impression was that much of the presentation emphasized incentives: prizes, themed days, and rewards. Those ideas might encourage participation, but I want to know what evidence the district uses to assess whether they improve sustained attendance and address why students miss school in the first place.
This is why I've been questioning professional development, accountability, and administrative layers—not just at Woodland, but across school districts.
We have built systems where district administrators direct principals, principals direct teachers, teachers direct students, and parents monitor their children. At every level, we talk about responsibility while narrowing the room people have to exercise professional or personal judgment.
Schools need permission to change. That includes permission to stop adding programs, training, documentation, and layers of supervision without first demonstrating their value.
And it includes the obligation to improve actual teaching—not merely the evidence that somebody followed a teaching procedure.
I came to Woodland to hear teachers. I left with more questions about who gets to decide what good teaching looks like.
I will ask the district to clarify its reasoning and continue reporting what the records and participants actually establish.
