Tuesday Talks: We’re Back — And We’re Just Getting Started!

After a short holiday break, Tuesday Talks is back—and we’re stepping into the second half of the school year with clarity, courage, and conversation.

Whether you’re a long-time listener or brand new to the show, this episode re-introduces the heart of Tuesday Talks: a space where parents and educators come together to understand school systems, advocate effectively, and keep kids at the center of every decision.

We share what Tuesday Talks is (and isn’t), why January is a critical checkpoint for families and schools, and what’s coming up in the months ahead—from special education testing and grading policies to mindset, mental health, homeschooling, and screen use.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, confused, or unsure how to support your child or students—this episode is your invitation back into the conversation.

🎧 New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review. Tell us what you’ll adjust first this semester—we’re building this village together.

Tuesday Talks—Real conversations sparking real change in education.

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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.

Book Dr. Tiffany as a speaker for your teachers, parent groups and professional development sessions! Our Words Matter Consulting

Transcript

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Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, welcome, welcome everybody. Welcome back to Tuesday Talks, or maybe I should say welcome if you are here for the first time checking out what Tuesday Talks is all about. I really appreciate your time, all the direct messages, the text messages, the feedback that you get, it just helps me know that I'm on the right track with the content that I'm bringing every week. So I appreciate it. Happy New Year to everybody. If you are a parent, an educator, a school leader, or someone who simply just cares deeply about how kids are experiencing school right now. I created this space for you because it's important. It's cliche, but kids are the future, right? And one size fits all in education has been a misnomer for a number of years. And so that is what I like to really bring forward on Tuesday Talk. So we're now at the top of a new year, and I don't see January as this fresh start. You know, people, you know, set these resolutions and all of these things. In the realm of education, I look at January as a checkpoint. We're halfway through the school year. Is this the time where we need to turn up the fire and really get things going? Is this a time where we can pull back from some things? It's a checkpoint for me in my household and how I kind of view it as an educator myself too, with a full year of school happening. So the second half is, in my opinion, also when the cracks start to show up. Or you see that spark of growth, maturity, um, responsibility, accountability. Maybe you see some shifts in that area too. So there's a lot of possibilities. In fact, that's my word personally from 2026 for myself, is possibility. So take that for what it's worth. But I feel like January is that moment where you can see some possibilities. You can also see some areas where things need to be tightened up. What was working isn't working anymore, and we need a shift. What was working is working great, and now maybe we can press the gas a little bit more and keep it moving. So Tuesday Talks is this podcast that created it because I felt like too many parents were confused, too many educators feel unheard, too many kids are navigating this educational system that wasn't built with their full humanity in mind. Just think about that for a minute. These kids are navigating systems that were not built with their full humanity in mind. Gone are the days where kids just come in like robots, sit at a desk, listen to somebody talk all day, take in all the information, regurgitate it for a test, and rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat. Those days are gone. Kids are showing up different in classrooms. I know for myself as a speech therapist, kids are showing up differently in therapy sessions. It's not the same. And so we need to make adjustments. And that's why I think Tuesday Talks is so important because it's not a podcast where I'm talking at you. It really is a conversational space where I bring research, real stories, real life parenting, and the educator experience, and all of those things collide together. Because Tuesday Talks is different because it's rooted in education and family systems. It's grounded in real experiences, my own experiences and special guests that I have on. It's focused on practical understanding, not these buzzwords that are out there. Because I know for myself, having worked in schools, as a speech therapist, you hear all these buzzwords either on the news or some newspaper article or maybe some journal article if you were into reading those. And you're like, yeah, that sounds good, but actually applying it day to day, it's not happening. And there are reasons why. Maybe it does work. Maybe those buzzwords in your schools are working. But I know sometimes I brought up topics to some teachers and they'd be like, Yeah, no, I get some pushback. And the pushback isn't a negative thing to me, because being willing to hold those complex conversations without choosing a side, that's the most important part. Because we don't have to do a us versus them, teachers versus parents, schools versus parents, parents versus you know the school board, traditional school versus alternative paths to education. We don't actually have to choose sides, we just have to choose kids and choose clarity and choose open-mindedness. That is really what I think is at the crux of Tuesday Talks, instead of it being this very linear one-way conversation where I'm just, you know, hey, this is what the research says. Hey, this is what you should be doing. It's a matter of like, have you thought about it this way? And I thought about it that way, talked to a few people, and was like, yeah, maybe that doesn't work for that specific group, but maybe it works over here. And I've shared many times here that my son, he's fifth grade now, 10 years old, and he's always done Montessori school. Right now, the type of school that he's at is a student-directed learning school. So he doesn't know what I experience as a kid in public schools. He doesn't know that. He knows being able to come in, choose what work he wants to work on, take his shoes off, work on the floor, work at the table, sit on a beanbag. He that's the school that he knows. So does that work for everybody? Absolutely not. Some days I'm not sure it works for him. But what I do know is that I chose that path for him because I wanted him to have something alternative. So it doesn't have to be a my way is right. And we don't have to do parents versus schools or teachers versus families. Here on Tuesday Talks, we do collaboration, clarity, and courageous conversations. And so over this past first half of the school year, we've spent time unpacking what special education actually is and what it is not. Um, it's a process, it's not a shortcut. And sometimes it doesn't bridge the gap that we're expecting it to bridge because we know there are stressors on the educational system that no IEP could ever overcome. Just keeping it real. If your gut is telling you as a parent that something isn't adding up, then Tuesday talks is gonna help you understand how to move, not just that you should. It's gonna, I'm gonna talk to you about how to make things shift so that things start to make sense. And that always starts with just asking questions. Um, over this past first half of the school year, we've talked a lot about what happens when kids are invited into conversations about their learning. We talked about student-led conferences, self-advocacy, and ownership rather than compliance, and really emphasizing that when kids understand their learning, behavior shifts, confidence shifts, outcome shifts. And if you're an educator, you know outcomes and data that piques the interest of any top official in a school district, a principal in a school building. If you can start talking about ways to impact outcomes in a positive way, you grab the attention of administrators and those even higher up than them. And so, really, that episode sparked a lot of conversation on social media when I talked about student-led conferences and even shared a clip of my son here doing his student-led conference with his guide at school. And I love it. I love that we don't all think exactly the same. Now, where it becomes an issue is when you become really stagnant in your position and not open to at least considering something different, maybe not for the whole, maybe just for a few that it works for and seeing where it goes from there. Um, over the past first half of the school year, we also talked about mental health and how you know, trauma-informed teaching, how that shows up in schools and making space for the conversations that schools often avoid, but that families live with every day. And the truth is, schools don't always have the answer. Then I don't tell you that because the way things are set up is that if they don't have the answer, they are now footing the bill when you, as the parent, go out and find the answer outside of school. And school budgets are already strained, and there are a lot of kids already getting above and beyond access to resources outside of schools that school districts are already paying for. So schools aren't gonna say, Yeah, we don't know how to handle that. No, we can't do that here. They're gonna find a way to make it work, even if it's not exactly what the kid needs, but maybe getting close enough to it because they're just ultimately trying to do the best they can without footing the bill for every kid that needs it to get outside resources. So that's one of the things I really pride myself on is just being a straight shooter. It is what it is. Instead of trying to cover it up, say these are our shortcomings. Let's collaborate and talk about how we can make up for these shortcomings. And one um episode that we talked about was a four-day school week. That was a way that some districts around the country have tried to mitigate shortcomings, staff shortages, teachers are quitting, they're burnt out, not good. Oh, come work for us. You only have to work four four days a week, and you still get your same pay, and kids are still learning, behavior is still good, and they impacted the outcomes, and that was something that schools did. So it's important, I think, for this podcast that parents and teachers in schools become this unit versus this like fractured, splintered entity, right? We all have to collaborate together. I'm a parent, I've I'm an educator, I've worked in public schools as a speech therapist. I also teach at the higher level at college master's degree program. It involves many different layers. It can't just be one-sided. So, as a parent, you don't have to have a degree in education to advocate for your kid. You need to understand the system that gives you power. And you're not doing too much by asking questions because that's the only way that you're gonna find out what the heck is going on in this building all day. You're gonna have to ask questions. What the heck is going on in my kid's classroom? You're gonna have to ask questions. And as educators, there's tension, but you aren't alone. I'm sure that you can talk to many other educators who feel the same level of tension, but knowing that your voice matters, that your safety, your capacity, all of those things actually matter and coming to a place like Tuesday Talks to hear that emphasize, it feels really good because reflection is not the same as blame. And we talked about that a lot in one of the past episodes, the first half of this school year. We need to listen to each other, parents and educators and school leaders. We need to listen to each other without defensiveness. And when that happens, that's when collaboration, growth, expansion, all those great things can happen, and you can have good partnerships amongst the key players, parents, teachers, schools. Will everything be perfect? Probably not. Can things improve? Most definitely. Possibility. So I wanted to just quickly share like what is coming up for the second half of the school year as far as show topics, guests. I want what families should be thinking about now to be at the top of mind. And the first thing that I think about because my background is in special education, starting that process now. So in the next couple of weeks, we're gonna have a very impactful episode about special education testing. Because if you're waiting until the end of the school year to say, hey, my kids have been struggling, it's it's too late. The struggle has impacted an entire school year. Now they're gonna go into the next school year, trying to make up what they missed while also being responsible for learning new content. And it is, I've seen it happen many, many times. That's hard to overcome. So January through March really matters. There's important data that helps make your case as a parent. If you feel like maybe the school isn't being responsive to your request to get your child tested for special education, and I'm also going to talk about what parents sometimes miss as some of those key things to look for. And also sometimes teachers are saying, hey, this kid needs help. And special educators of the schools are trying RTI response to intervention instead of moving forward and getting the kid the specialized instruction that they actually need. So that is gonna be a great episode. That is something that like sparked in your mind, hey, maybe this is something my kid needs. Be sure to tune in because that's coming up in a couple of weeks. Also, coming up for the second half of this school year, I have some special guests. We're gonna be talking about growth versus fixed mindset. And we're not talking about it in a cliche way, but we're talking about how adult mindset shapes student behavior and also what happens when feedback that we give kids triggers their identity. And talking about growth mindset as a practice and not as some poster that you put up on the wall and say, Yeah, have a growth mindset, but actually giving you practical ways to instill that growth mindset in your kids and in your students as well. I always love to have my son on, he loves to be on here. He's asked me all the time, can I come on? Can I? So we're gonna check in with him because remember, January is a checkpoint. I had a conversation with him just today on the way to school. Like, hey, what are we gonna do different for the second half of this school year? What are we gonna keep the same for the second half of the school year? So we're gonna be checking in and honestly about goals, pressure, and expectations, that balance between the academic piece, the social piece, and the passion piece too, because the school really does focus on building up and building on, I should say, the kids' passions. So, where what are your passions? You've identified them now. How do we build on that and what that actual support looks like at this mid-year mark? We are also gonna have a guest return from the previous first half of the school year, Danita Byrd. Remember, she decided to homeschool her kid for this school year for the very first time. No background in education, no background in teaching, none of that. Public school student herself, she pulled her kid out of public school and homeschooled her. And so we're gonna check in and really see like what has changed because when we talked to her before, she was like, Oh, this is this ain't it. So we're gonna see maybe she changed her mind. The beginning of anything new can be rocky, right? We all know that. So maybe she's changed her mind. So we're gonna talk about that, check in with her, get an update. We're also gonna talk about screen-free challenge because we know screen time isn't the best thing for kids, but we're looking at regulation rather than replacement, right? Because screens are a part of kids' lives these days. There's no two ways about it. You're not gonna have a truly screen-free kid. It's impossible. So, we're gonna talk about how to, you know, make that pause, what to do when the pause comes. If you want to partake in the screen-free challenge, I'm gonna lay out some things that you can do to, you know, replace it momentarily and see if as a family you all can grow towards trying some of those things more often versus just during a set amount of time, like for a screen-free challenge. And then also talking about grading systems. There are some, I call them sneaky little things in the grading system for some schools of that I've talked to teachers about that kids can't make a certain grade below this threshold and what that kind of represents as far as their knowledge when you're looking at report cards, because that's what we're that's what we look at to measure knowledge in public schools. And I might shock some of you, but as I said, my kid has gone to Montessori since he was three. He's never had a report card, he's never gotten a grade on a worksheet, he's never seen a grade on a piece of paper. He just has it now. Some people might say, Well, how do you know that he knows anything? I see it in different ways. So I want parents to understand what the kids' grades do mean on a report card, what that can represent, and how that translates into day-to-day life, critical thinking, problem solving, interpersonal skills. How do those grades that you see mean more than just they're doing good? How is it developing them or contributing to their development as a person? So we're gonna dive into that as well because when I heard my teacher friend tell me about this low grading threshold, my mind was blown. I was like, say what? So we're gonna dig into that a little bit as well. We're also gonna talk about student athletes and their mental health with special guests that I'm gonna have on. Um, really looking at performance pressure, the journey after being diagnosed with a mental health illness, and really what balance needs to take place in order to help, you know, keep you in a good place. And we're gonna look at the sports side of that as well because there's a heavy emphasis on mental health, a heavy um connection, I should say, between mental health and sports, especially for kids. So we're gonna have a special guest, licensed clinical therapist, coming on to talk about specifically that topic. So I'm really excited about that one. And then, you know, I'm here in Georgia, so kids need to get ready for. State testing, we are also going to talk about what needs to happen so we have preparation without panic. What matters when we're getting kids ready for state testing, what doesn't, and then how parents can really support kids getting ready for these state tests because you don't need to know what exactly is on the test to be able to support your kids being ready to test as the parent. The teachers are gonna do their job as a parent. I know I have teach have parent friends who are like, What can I do to help my kid get ready? I don't know these state tests, I don't know what questions they're gonna ask. Yes, I saw a practice test, but what can I do? I'm not a teacher, and so I'm gonna share some things that you can do. So whether you've been here since day one, when it was me and Val, or this is your very first Tuesday joining me, you are right on time. The season of Tuesday Talks is really about clarity, courage, and connection. And so I invite you to like, follow, subscribe, all the social media things, share this episode with another parent or educator, and really focus on showing up. Not perfect, because none of us are, but present, right? We are not here to fix kids, but we are here to understand systems so kids don't get lost inside of them. Very important. There is not a perfect solution for each and every kid, but what you can do as a parent is understand the system so your kid doesn't get lost inside of it. As a teacher, you can understand how to share insights into the system to help kids not get lost in that system as well. So, welcome back to Tuesday Talks. Let's do the second half of this school year together because as the old adage says, it takes a village. And this is your village. So I will see you next week with a brand new Tuesday Talks. Share this episode, and I'll see you soon. Bye. Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday talks. See ya.