The ACA and the SEIC work together to promote paddle sports and grow our organization.  Occasionally, situations arise that require some flexibility in our normal rules & procedures: SEIC Policy Manual.  These exceptions generally fall into the following categories:

• New Discipline Development - like the recent SUP discipline
• Inadequate Instructor/IT/ITE availability - like the Adaptive Paddling discipline
• Unique opportunity to enlist a world class Instructor
• Unique opportunity to add a world renowned paddling school/program
• Special geographic opportunities
• An ICW class with less than 4 candidates due to uncontrollable circumstances

There may be other situations but the above situations are the most common.

Formal waiver requests must be submitted to the SEI before the event takes place with adequate time to evaluate - generally several weeks.  Some waivers may be authorized by the SEI but many need evaluation and approval by the SEIC Standards Committee and the Discipline Chair.  The Standards Committee consists of the SEIC Officers: Chair, Vice Chair, Past Chair, and Secretary.  Waiver requests state the special exception to be granted and a sensible rational for granting that exception.  These waivers are evaluated on a case by case basis and a vote is recorded by the SEI along with a formal reply granting the waiver or not.

ACA

Most people think the ACA is just for paddle sports education.  Although the ACA is certainly the number one organization in that field, the ACA provides a great deal more: About the ACA.  The basic ACA tenets are:

• Education
• Stewardship
• Competition
• Recreation

NOTE: Recreation kind of overlaps the other tenets but has some extra interesting events like film festivals, support for padling club events, festivals, etc.

The ACA also maintains extensive partnerships and often is involved with public policy lobbying/consulting in regards to paddling interests.

SEI

The SEI - Safety Education Instruction Department is the workhorse for many of our programs.  They provide all of the back office support we need to run effective training programs.  With over 4,500 instructors across the nation (and outside the US as well), wen generate a great deal of paperwork.  The SEI Department contact list is: SEI Contact List.  The SEI Department als manages our insurance program as well as outreach efforts that enable the ACA to continue it's growth and influence.

SEIC - Safety Education & Instruction Council

The SEIC is the volunteer arm.  The SEIC manages our instruction program, they set the standards, develop curriculum, certify instructors, trainers, ITE's.  The SEIC are the SME's (Subject Matter Experts) for our various paddle Sports programs.  The SEIC and the SEI work very closely together, neither could be sucessful without the other.  At a grossly high level, the SEIC has DIFs (Divisional Instruction Facilitators) and Disciplines.  Disciplines are easy to understand - they maintain/develop the curriculum for River & Coastal kayaing, Canoeing, Rafting, Safety & Rescue, SUP, and Adaptive Paddling.  DIFs are a tad more mysterious.  They manage a clearing house for instructors helping the public understand training resources in their region.  They also help the ACA grow their organization by helping to recruit qualified instructors and trainers.  the top of the SEIC is the SEIC officers who also sit on the Standards Committee.  The officers are the Chair, Vice Chair, Post Chair, and the Secretary.  The Standards Committee works with the SEI on challenges and waivers.  The SEIC maintains a web page with contacts, bylaws, and policy manual.

Instructor certifications are good for a period of 4 years.  Existing instructors can take updates multiple times and sucesssfully complete their update at any point during that time.  The normal outcome is a clean pass - their skills remain current and they demonstrate proper teaching skills.  In some cases, an instructor may choose to complete an update at a lower level (an IT/ITE at their level might not be available, they no longer teach classes at their highest level, etc.).  An unsuccessful completion is also possible, perhaps their skills are no longer at their current level.  You can also help them with some sort of corrective training - very similar to continuing a new instructor.

Now for a dicey matter, what if the instructor candidate is totally unsuitable.  Perhaps their skills have degraded considerably or worse yet, clearly demonstrate a disregard for student safety.  You will of course mark them as unsuccessfully completing this update and give them a thoughtful explanation/debrief.  You should also contact the SEI office and request a formal challenge.  This challenge process is well documented in the SEIC Policy manual in Chapter 5, Section C.