A Parent’s Guide to Parent-Teacher Conferences….
And to Parent-Teacher Communication in General
Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up. This guide was written by experienced parents,
teachers and administrators to help you make the most of the parent-teacher conferences.
You child’s first report card of the year will go home on November 13, 2015. Parent-teacher
conferences are on Tuesday, November 17. Your child will be dismissed from school that day at
noon. You will have the option of coming in to see his/her teachers either between 1:00 and
3:00pm or between 5:00 and 8:00pm.
If you have concerns or questions about the class, the assignments, your child’s
progress or behavior, you should contact the teacher any time.
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Remember that the teachers usually have between 90 to 210 students and they do not have
time to keep every parent up-to-date, in most cases teachers will contact parents if and
when a child is at-risk of failing. Otherwise they will expect parents to regularly check
agenda books to stay involved in the child’s academic progress.
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However, teachers will make every effort to return your requests for contact. You are
always welcome to call or email them. Just remember you cannot expect them to get back to
you immediately. You should also provide them with a range of times to call, appropriate
phone numbers to reach you, and current email address. If the situation calls for it, you can
set up a conference with the teacher. You may consider including your child in a conference
with the teacher.
What to expect:
 Parent/teacher meetings are limited to a 4 minute discussion for each child.
 Many teachers use a timer and have student volunteers helping them stick to a signup schedule.
 While you may have had longer meetings with your child’s elementary school teacher,
please remember that your child has 7 teachers and that each of your child’s
teachers has many students.
 The 4 minute limit is the only way to ensure all parents get to see the teachers they
want to see.
 You will be asked to sign your name on a waiting list (be aware monitors will skip any
parents who are not there when their names are called and move them to the bottom
of the list).
See back for more helpful tips!!!
So, you’re wondering how you can possibly address all the questions you have in 4
minutes? Here are some suggestions put together by experienced parents, teachers
and school administrators that ought to help:
1. Come early
2. Reread all communications sent home from teachers, especially from the first week of
school and curriculum night. This is when the teacher gave you his/her expectations, grading
policies, curriculum and other notes about his/her classroom.
3.
Using the teacher’s grading policy and your child’s graded assignments as a guide, try to
understand your child’s grade as much as possible.
4. Review your child’s agenda book before meeting with teachers
5. Talk to your child about his/her progress in the class and about his/her grade.
6. Write up notes for what you want to discuss with each teacher.
7. If you know you have a lot to discuss, set up a separate conference with your child’s teacher.
8. Prioritize. Decide which teacher you feel it’s most important to see during the conference
period. Go to that teacher first and sign in on his/her sign-in sheet. Be there at the
appointed time. If you miss the appointment, you will have to add your name to the bottom
of the list when you return.
9. If there are two parents/guardians for the child and it is comfortable for you to see the
child’s teachers together, please do so. In this situation, you can also consider having one
parent or guardian go to some of the child’s teachers while the other goes to different
teachers.
10. If you don’t cover everything you wanted to cover in the 4 minutes, suggest to the teacher
that you meet again or complete the conversation by phone or e-mail. Try to respect the
other parents’ appointments and the teachers’ desires to give each parent a chance.
11. If you don’t speak English, try to identify an adult who can accompany you to translate.
Remember that you do not need to wait for parent-teacher conferences to learn
about your child’s work, teachers, curriculum, etc. Other opportunities to do this are:
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E-mail
Notices that come home, especially at the beginning of the year
Your child’s agenda book
Teacher’s website at www.ms51.org – or additional website, PupilPath or googleclass pages
Set appointment for Tuesday morning conferences
NOTE: Your child will also receive report cards in January, April, and the last week of
school (provided all text books are returned.)
There will be another ‘parent-teacher conferences’ on March 17, 2016.