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Issaquah teacher urges board to make longer classroom visits as inclusion expands
Summary
Maywood Middle School teacher Camille Wright told the Issaquah School District board that rapid inclusion changes and new curriculum adoptions have increased teacher workload and urged board members to schedule extended classroom visits requested by teachers to better understand classroom realities.
Camille Wright, a teacher at Maywood Middle School, told the Issaquah School District Board of Directors on June 10 that this school year’s rapid rollout of new curriculum and expanded inclusion has placed heavy demands on teachers.
Wright said she has worked in Issaquah for 24 years and praised staff for adapting amid “high expectations and significant challenges” but argued the pace of some changes has outstripped available supports. “While we wholeheartedly support the philosophy of inclusive education, the rapid pace of implementation, often without sufficient supports or planning time, created real struggles,” Wright said. She described teachers’ efforts to differentiate and collaborate despite the added workload and increased behavioral challenges in classrooms.
Wright urged the board to conduct more intentional, extended school visits rather than brief, single-period observations filtered through administrative lenses. “I’ve been in the district for 24 years and have not had one school board member in my classroom,” she said. She asked the board to prioritize visits that last multiple periods and to accept invitations from teachers for those visits so board members can see both challenges and the work happening in classrooms.
The board acknowledged her comments and moved on to the consent agenda.
