Christie Green & Robin Lowder

The traditional “one-size-fits-all” idea of education doesn’t work for every kid. That much is clear. Some children need additional, targeted support in focus areas like reading and math. The longer they go without this support, the further they fall behind, impacting their academic futures and their confidence in setting attainable goals for the future.

Christie Green and Robin Lowder specialize as Response to Intervention (RTI) instructors, a dedicated role that centers on helping students who need more support than traditional classroom settings can offer. As leaders in a developing field, Christie and Robin are not just teachers; they’re often lifelines for kids in crisis.

Robin, a lifelong resident of Waverly, has served the community for decades. She specializes in Math RTI, helping students grasp essential mathematical concepts in a way that suits their individual learning styles. “With math, I try to do more of a hands-on kind of thing,” she explains. “Some people are just visual learners, while others are more of a hands-on learner. They need to be able to see the function of what they’re doing and why they need to do it.” RTI specialists are uniquely trained to detect learning gaps on a case-by-case basis and address obstacles holistically. Christie Green initially aspired to a career in biology or veterinary sciences. But the joy she found in education, partly inspired by an aunt who was a teacher, eventually set her on the right career trajectory. “I had an aunt that was a teacher, and I always liked to do book work,” Christie remembers fondly. With over 23 years of experience teaching at Waverly, she believes in tailoring her approach to the student. “The thing that I think is most important is giving them a book that’s at their level so they can feel successful, yet still build some skills,” she says.

Robin and Christie apply the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework in their RTI interventions, which helps them better cater to students’ varied needs. It’s an educational framework designed to identify and address student objectives at various levels, or “tiers,” of instruction and intervention. “Sometimes the kids that come to see us, attention is part of the problem,” Christie notes. “We want to make sure that we can stay focused within our groups.” This system aims to provide early intervention for struggling students and to remediate issues before they require more intensive, specialized education services.

The two often see factors at home contributing to poor learning outcomes, what they believe are symptoms of a broader cultural change. “Children’s lives have changed,” Lowder says. “We used to talk about the nuclear family…the nucleus that we used to call our families is not there anymore. And it’s really no fault of anybody’s because people are busy.” The modern family unit has grown less consistent due to various commitments and perhaps less parental availability. Christie and Robin find that the children they teach lack consistency in practicing skills outside school. As Robin points out, the advantage of working in a small community like Waverly is that teachers can be more in touch with the familial situations of their students.

“I feel like we have a very supportive community when it comes to helping those in need,” Robin says. “and I think our school body as a group is very aware of student issues.” In a national era where the structure of a ‘family unit’ starts to mean different things for different reasons, our children’s educational needs become more complex. The old paradigm of education as a uniform path is shifting, making way for a more nuanced and individualized approach, and it’s good to know that we have folks like Robin and Christie here on the ground, facing down each new challenge as it arrives.