A New way to conference with parents!

There are many ways to have a parent teacher conference and yes, they are necessary but what if I told you parent teacher conferences are changing. Conferences usually suggest reporting which hinders a two way form of communication. We want parents to take an active role, suggest ideas, and collaboratively as a team come up with student supports, right.   I first was introduced to this diverse thinking when I attended a meeting for the Prichard committee.  This organization offers a variety of programs aimed at bringing together parents, teachers, and community members to participate in school improvement, education policy reform, and bridge the communication gap between stakeholders involved. In the session parents were discussing data, and how the parents can support the push of comprehension because it was a school-wide goal. Well at Creighton School district they are changing the landscape of conferencing they hold an academic Parent-Teacher-Conference Team that involves parent /teacher classroom meetings three times per year. They also hold an individual parent-teacher conference to review student performance.Take a closer look at the format below.[embed]https://youtu.be/pEn06v3Pl_4[/embed]Harvard’s Family Research Project states:Presenting the Data: During team meetings, the teachers provide data on aggregate classroom performance. Each parent receives a folder containing his or her child’s academic data and is able to understand the child’s performance in relation to the rest of the class on standards for reading and math. Some teachers have parent’s color bar graphs to represent areas their child has mastered.

Academic Parent–Teacher Teams

Three 75-minute classroom team meetings each year. 

These team meetings are initiated by a personal invitation to the parent by the teacher, and consist of the teacher, the entire class of parents, and a parent liaison.  Each meeting includes a review of student academic performance data, parent–student academic goal setting, teacher demonstration of skills to practice at home, parent practice, and networking opportunities with other parents.

One 30-minute individual parent–teacher conference. 

In this yearly individual meeting parents and teachers review student performance data and create action plans to optimize learning. One-on-one parent–teacher meetings are held once a year, or more regularly if requested

mature student classroom

Setting Goals: The teacher then helps parents set 60-day goals for their child based on his or her academic scores. For example, if the standard is for 1st graders to learn 120 high-frequency words by the end of second quarter, children working ahead of the curve might have a goal of mastering all 120 by the end of November, whereas a child behind the curve might have a goal of 75.Demonstrating how parents can support learning:  After families set goals for their children, the teacher models different ways parents can support their child’s learning at home. Parents are then given an opportunity to practice these activities with other parents. Team meetings end with an opportunity for parents to network and socialize with other parents and families. One-on-one parent–teacher meetings are held once a year, or more regularly if requested, to also give parents a formal opportunity to meet with teachers on an individual basis.Managing the new structureThe Director of Community Education is responsible for meeting student achievement goals through family involvement. This individual provides training for teachers, district board members and administrators, and the parent liaisons.Measuring the resultsData sharing has helped Creighton School District shift the paradigm for how parents and teachers work together. A study of how APTTs influence student achievement and parent involvement is under way; however, anecdotes, short surveys, and analysis of utilization rates suggest six main results:

1. Improved social networks: Parents report expanded social networks as a result of getting to know other families at team meetings.

2. Increased teacher participation: APTTs are not a district mandate, but rather an optional grassroots project that teachers can adopt if they chose. In the 2009–2010 school year, 12 classrooms participated, while 79 classrooms have already signed on for the upcoming 2010–2011 school year. This increase speaks to the power and success of the program.

3. Increased father involvement: A surprising result has been the high numbers of fathers who have come to team meetings—more than in classrooms with conventional parent–teacher conferences. When fathers were asked what made them more interested in coming to team meetings, they said that they were specifically interested in academics and wanted to be involved in understanding their child’s progress.

4. High attendance: In the classrooms that had APTTs, attendance at meetings was 92% on average. That was much higher than participation in conventional parent–teacher conferences.

5. Improved efficiency and time use: With APTTs, teachers are more efficient and use their time in a more productive way. APTTs require the same number of hours as conventional conferences because the entire group of parents meets together at once, but instead of seeing parents only twice over the school year parents and teachers have four formal opportunities to meet.

6. Parents are empowered: Many of the parents who participated in last year’s APTTs asked to continue the program. They want their children to be in a classroom that will be participating in APTT this coming school year.