09/08/2026
Imagine turning the very real wait-to-fail model into a joke. Now imagine discovering the joke came from a school psychologist account.
Check out the original post in the first comment. (It has thankfully been deleted.)
We love a good joke. We joke here too. But there is nothing funny about children being told to wait while their struggles compound. What was even more troubling was watching professionals in the comments laugh along and defend it.
This is the mindset families encounter when we come to the table with family history, preschool records, screening data, teacher observations, and everything we know about our child, only to hear: “They’re too young.” “It’s only September.” “We need more data.” “Let’s wait.”
Does every kindergartner need an evaluation? No. But we also cannot predetermine that we simply don’t evaluate kindergartners in September.
Child Find is about suspicion, not proof. And intervention and evaluation are not mutually exclusive. You can intervene while you evaluate.
We know too much about early identification to keep defending wait-to-fail. Every month we wait is another month that child is still sitting in a classroom struggling.
So yes, I have a sense of humor. But “WAIT” should never be our favorite assessment.
For far too many children, waiting has already been the intervention. That’s the problem.
