Parent Teacher Conference

Sherry Ayres

November 28, 2012

Parent Teacher Conference Reflection

            I like to see the student’s parents. It gives you a whole different view of who they are and how they came to be. It’s also interesting to see how the student interacts with his/her parents, which is often very different than how they are in class. It’s enlightening. The first time we met the parents at Back to School Night, there had only been a few weeks of school, and so we didn’t really know all that much about the students. This time was different. By now, we really know their children a lot more and have a lot to report.

             Parents were lined up at the door before the school day ended at 1:00pm. Officially, conferences start at 1:15, but Ms. Duca starts them earlier as she figures that both she and the parent are already here. As we are out in the trailers, there really is no way to have the parents wait outside without them freezing, so she allows them to come in, has them sign a sign-in sheet, and look through their child’s papers at his/her desk while she is speaking to another parent. Even right after school, there were no more than three parents in the room at the same time, and so the system seemed to work well.

            Ms. Duca started each conference by going over the report card with the parent, describing the grade s/he got in each subject area and why. She then explained the behavior/ characteristic marks at the end of the report card, and then read the comment that she wrote about the student’s overall progress. Then she would usually expand on anything that she wrote particularly in response to the parent’s comments and questions. I thought it was a good idea that she read what she wrote, as I know in spur of the moment, I’ll often forget something important that I wanted to mention, and so that is a good way to guard against that.

I loved seeing the pride swell on their faces as Ms. Duca showed the parents their grades. Of course, it was tough to see the looks of shame on their faces, but for those students for whom our strong urgings don’t seem to be getting through to, I think it’s a needed reinforcement of the importance of our words and the areas in which they need to improve. One parent, in particular, really lit into her daughter, who was in tears; it was very hard to see. Another family was in the room at the time, which I’m sure only magnified the embarrassment.  This student can be very aggressive herself in interactions with other students, but often seeks affection from me. Even from the very first days of school, she’d come over and give me a big hug. Now I can understand more some of the possible underpinnings of these behaviors. I was particularly pleased to be able to be of greater assistance when two parents came in who didn’t speak English as their first language. My Spanish comprehension is good enough that I can understand everything they said. My verbal abilities leave a little more to be desired, but I was able to get our points across.

I definitely felt nervous when parents of some of our struggling students came in, but watching Lisa in action has given me a much better sense of how I will handle these things next year. Moreover, I saw that really all of the parents were very receptive to the teachers’ feedback and for the most part my prior nerves were unwarranted.