Do We Need Parent-Teacher Conferences? A Better Alternative

We just wrapped up our most recent round of parent-teacher conferences. Attendance was dismal.

The poor attendance caused me to reflect, “Why was attendance so low?”

• With student grades being updated regularly online, parents know how their children are doing.
• Our teachers and counselors regularly communicate with families, sharing positive news, student progress, and student challenges. They’ve reached out to parents of struggling students, so phone calls and conferences with many parents have already been held prior to Parent-Teacher Conference night.
• By high school, many parents have heard the same thing for years about their child.

The idea behind parent-teacher conferences—to support student success through engaging parents—is commendable, but if parents aren’t attending, we must look at other ways to create shared school-family responsibility to support student learning and development.

So what if, instead of parent-teacher conferences, we used the allotted and required parent-teacher conference days to plan for and conduct Student Showcases?

Many classrooms sat empty during our most recent parent-teacher conferences. Maybe it's time we look for alternatives

What’s a Student Showcase?

• An annual event where families, community members and others are invited
• An experiences that highlights student work, creativity, discovery, ingenuity, research, innovation, 21^st-century skills, and more
• A forum that engages students, families and community
• A means of communicating all the wonderful work our students/children and teachers do
• Opportunities for students to present their work, interact with the public and gain valuable experiences that extend beyond the classroom
• A way for students to connect with members of the community, potentially leading to jobs or other opportunities

Possible Student Showcase Ideas:

• Culinary students perform cooking demonstrations.
• Choir, orchestra and band classes give small, intimate concerts.
• Senior capstone students share their projects with community members.
• Students in floral design hold workshops for families, allowing families to learn the tricks-of-the-trade. 
  
• English, foreign language, and social studies classes present projects, make speeches, conduct Socratic Seminars, recite poetry, etc. with families in attendance.
• Students in Career-Technical Education classes present and demonstrate their projects.
• Art students display their works.
• Science students conduct and explain labs or projects to community members.
• Students in health and PE teach some of the unique games they play to their families or present some of their health projects to families.
• Students in film analysis showcase their films.
• Computer programming students share their programs and games. 

I know a school-wide event like this requires immense planning and time, things that educators don't exactly have a lot of, so it would require some tweaking to our school calendar and some other minor changes. But, I also view the Student Showcase as an opportunity to celebrate student growth and excellence, things that we can never do enough of.

As a parent, I know I’d be excited and eager to attend an event like this.

Maybe it’s time we scrap, the traditional parent-teacher conferences for something different, something better. Let me know your thoughts below.

Your Back to School Letter

At the end of the first day of school, students will be caring home 4, 5, 6, 7 back to school letters to their parents. Multiply that by the number of children and you can easily approach two-dozen letters! A cynic might say, “That’s why I don’t write a back to school letter. Parents don't read 'em anyway."

Maybe that explains why, as a teacher and parent, I've seen my fair share of bad back to school letters. These would be the letters that are: 

• riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors.
• too long; Listing every intricate detail, procedure and rule
• threatening in tone. Overuse of statements like “I will not,” “…will result in…” I still remember a student sharing a letter from a teacher that read something like, “My job is to teach the students. It is their responsibility to adapt to my style and to learn.”  Needless to say, the student wasn’t looking forward to this class; who can blame her?

On the other hand, a great back to school letter sets the tone for parent-teacher-student engagement.

What's included in a great back to school letter?

• Your passion for your subject and your students. Why do you teach? What do you hope students will bet out of your class? What will students learn about themselves? 
• Something personal--break down the walls. Learning should be a shared endeavor; so let your parents and students get to know who you really are.
• How are you going to ensure that all students are successful?
• Contact information. I've always included my personal phone number and only once in 20 years has it been any sort of problem (1 prank phone call from a student). 
• What parents can do to help their children be successful in your class.
• What makes your class different--and better--than the rest.

Powerful words and phrases:

Shared                        Journey                      Exciting                    Together       

We                             Incredible                   Success                     Effort

Connect                     Communication          Develop                    Engaging

Expect                       Learn                          Progress                    Us

Contact me                Background                Looking forward to   Believe

Different                    Care                            Challenge                  Help

What do you think should or shouldn't be included in a back to school letter? 

Parents, do you read them? Do they matter? 

Friday Five

Somewhere—I don’t know where—along my professional journey, I came across the idea of a Friday Five. Every Friday I randomly call at least five parents and seek their opinions on how our high school is doing and how we can improve our school.

For the most part, parents are very complimentary of our school. They credit our teachers and staff with creating an enriching and caring environment.

Some of their suggestions are beyond my lowly reach (although I’ll gladly share it with my superiors). Suggestions that fit this bill: 1:1 computing, BYOD, course offerings, and school board policies.

The phone calls have enabled the school’s administration to pinpoint and address problems. The most frequent parental complaint—one that mirrors results of our annual parent survey—teachers who don’t communicate routinely and effectively.  Over the last couple of years, we’ve slowly adopted an online course management program. Teacher use of the system is varied, leading to legitimate parent complaints because some teachers post grades online, others don’t. Some post assignments in the course calendar, some don’t. As an administration, we’ve begun to address these discrepancies and other means of improving parent-teacher communication.  Immediately, I email/talk to teachers who parents would like to hear from. 

After getting over the initial shock caused by, “This is Reed Gillespie. I’m an assistant principal at Kettle Run,” every parent has been appreciative of my efforts to reach out and solicit their feedback. The initial call has served as an impetus to future conversations as parents have emailed or called later to both praise and gripe.  

Most importantly, seeking parental feedback sends a message to parents that we value their opinions. It opens our eyes to strategies for improvement and sets the tone for school-parent communication and engagement.

Parent Engagement

As part of our Kettle Run edcamp (read: prior posts) , we created a hour-long parent-teacher roundtable. As the organizer of the roundtable, I tried to include a diverse parent panel. The roundtable was well-attended by approximately 2 dozen teachers. Although we only had an hour together, I learned a lot and I believe the others in attendance did as well.

Four Take-Aways


1. We all want what's best for the students/children. 
Teachers want their students to thrive in their classroom and beyond. Parents, of course, want the same. One teacher put it simply, "We're in this together. We need your support."

2. Communication is a shared responsibility. 
One parent sheepishly admitted she wasn't sure if it was OK to email teachers with comments and concerns. Reflecting the views of all the teachers present, a veteran teacher begged, "Please, please email us. We want to communicate with you."

Another remarked, "If you have a concern, please let us know. We [want an opportunity] to address your concern and fix it if necessary."

Expressing the delicate nature of the balance between communicating with parents and allowing students to learn on their own, a teacher commented, "I want my students to take responsibility for their actions. You (parents) won't always be there and it's important for students to learn on their own from their own failures."

3. We have the same concerns. 
While parents want what's best for their children, they also want what's best for all of the children. During the roundtable one parent brought up the widespread cheating that seems to occur, a sentiment shared by most of the teachers present. As a result, at least partially, cheating was brought up in later edcamp discussions and administratively we're looking at what actions we should take. Parents thanked us for creating a safe and nurturing environment and they expressed a concern/understanding over high stakes testing and their impact on learning. 

4. Parents want to be heard. 
Well over half of the parents I invited couldn't attend the parent-teacher roundtable because of prior commitments. Almost every parent who declined the invitation encouraged me to invite them to future parent-teacher roundtables and many took the time to email me their concerns and feelings.

Moving forward with the goal of increasing parent engagement
While none of the points above is earth-shattering, the conversation reaffirmed my beliefs that we must actively engage parents.

I'm hoping to offer future parent-teacher and parent-administrator roundtables in the future because this truly was a valuable experience for all involved. While much of communication between parents and school officials takes place informally (on the sidelines of children's games, at churches, at the grocery stores), we must find ways to ensure parents are heard.

Immediate ways to increase parent-school engagement:

• Expand our social media presence (Remind101, Twitter, school website)
• Friday Five: randomly call five parents on Friday to discuss school affairs 
• Offer parent/community trainings (in person and online) once a month on what we're doing at Kettle Run. Possible sessions include: AngelLearning (our course management software), Twitter, book clubs, bullying, cyber-citizenship. 
• Increase attendance at Parent-Teacher Conference nights by showcasing student work, staging live performances, etc.

Ideas for the future:

• Offer roundtables and gatherings in the community (coffee shop, local Pizza parlor, etc.)
• Create a school blog allowing parents to communicate with school officials
• Community service day involving students, parents and school staff

Parents, teachers, administrators, what are your ideas for increasing parent engagement?