by Jan Pierce, M.Ed.
W
hether it’s your first parent-teacher
conference or your twentieth, you
probably get sweaty palms upon
entering the classroom at your assigned timeslot.
After all, you’re on the teacher’s turf and you’re about
to hear news about your own flesh and blood’s progress
or lack thereof. The language routinely used in school
settings might not “compute” and you may have real
concerns about any number of issues related to your
child’s placement and daily life at school.
I know from personal experience that teachers also
get a bit stressed at conference time. From their
perspective, they have a ton of data from each subject
area to put into a format that can be conveyed and
discussed in about eighteen minutes time. It’s a tall
order and has to be done in back to back sessions.
Teachers have been known to call the child by the
wrong name after nine or ten conferences when they’re
exhausted and just longing to go home and put their
feet up.
But back to you, the parent. You need information.
You want to know how your child is doing in relation to
the rest of the class. You want to know if there are
problems on the horizon and whether or not your child
is working up to his or her ability. And, you deserve that
information.
It’s important that you
understand the purpose of
parent conferences. In
general the fall conference
held several months after
the beginning of the
term is a broad overview
of the child’s standing.
In this initial conference you’ll hear about
progress in each subject area and maybe a
few of the highlights of your child’s
performance. You’ll probably be given work
samples that give evidence of success levels
or areas of need. You may get some test
scores that serve to set goals for the rest of
the year. If all systems are “go” you may
VOLUSIA
parent
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