I often get emails from people wondering why I don’t do more on-the-ground reporting. The short answer is: It’s hard to get into classrooms, or even principals’ offices.

There are a few principals who will let me in, but even then sometimes I am not allowed to talk to teachers and students — or only ones that were hand-picked by the principal.

Why am I talking about this now? It’s already taken at least two weeks and several emails for me to get permission to shadow a teacher for a day. Right now we’re working with the principal, who wants reassurance that our story won’t “negatively reflect on any student.”