Another spectacularly successful parent teacher conference day!

[proud2BlibKansan]

Worked a 12 hour day and got to see exactly two parents. Spent most of the day manning the phone in the office so the secretary could go home at a decent hour. Got to use her computer. (The powers that be have decided that since I am traveling between schools I don't need a computer so I get to smile and ask to use co-worker's computers.) Anyway, got a bunch of paperwork done and files caught up. Tried to understand Spanish speaking parents on the phone and that's always fun.

Then I spent the last few hours at my second school where several of us sat in one classroom and giggled over youtube videos on my phone. (No youtube on school district computers.) One of the teachers there has a class of 19 and she had 3 parents show up today. Another has a class of 20 and she had 4 parents.

Sat and talked to the parent liaison while she manned the check in table at the door. I was there 30 minutes and exactly 5 parents came in.

I have 17 students between 2 schools and I had 2 parents come for conferences. TWO. That's a whopping 11%.

Just how messed up and irresponsible do you have to be to not care enough about your kid to want to come to school and pick up his report card and meet his teachers? I've never understood this.

My district is one of those that is continually criticized. Our kids are failing. Too many drop out. Test scores really suck. The state is breathing down our necks and threatening to take us over. The pressure is on and has been on for as long as I can remember.

But seriously, if the parents don't give a shit, why should anyone else?

89% of my parents don't care enough to come meet me. And I had to work a 12 hour day to find that out.

[Faygo Kid]

1. I'm so very sorry. Thanks for your dedication.

I NEVER missed a parent-teacher conference during my daughter's school years. Ever.

Of course, she's 33 now and has done nothing with her life, which is a disaster. So don't be too frustrated. Give a shit about yourself. You are doing the right thing, and can't control what others may do.

I for one thank you for it. You're a good person. Have a nice glass of wine and understand that whatever others may do, you have to answer to yourself. And that answer is pretty damned positive tonight.

Thanks again, and all the best.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Hey I hear you about 30 somethings doing nothing

That's a whole nuther topic! LOL

Thanks for the nice words. :hug:

[glowing]

2. Many of these parents may be holding down 2 or 3 jobs to pay the bills.

Many jobs will tell you that a parent teacher conference is not an important "off" day. If you want to change the attitude about parent teacher conf., there needs to be a law that states any parent needing to attend a parent teacher conference will be allowed to without losing their job, and will also be paid for their time missing that job...

[Luciferous]

4. I can understand that, and I don't know about the district the poster

works for, but the teachers in my district are very accommodating. If you can't come in at the designated time, a lot of them offer to talk to you on the phone, or at a time that is more convenient.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. For many years we even did home visits

We go out of our way to make this convenient and easy for parents. Bottom line - they either care enough to have a conference or they don't.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. I called every single one of them and offered to have a phone conference

Two were too busy to talk right now and promised to call me back. They did not. I left messages for the others and they didn't call me back either.

There is a law. It's called the Family and Medical Leave Act. It was one of the few really good things Clinton did.

[glowing]

17. And it covers people who are employed at a business with over 50 employees.

Now, myself, I was raised by a teacher. I know better than to NOT participate in my child's education. Screw the job... the child is more important.. they are the future. However, it is a problem.. Its good to hear that you go above and beyond. When a parent cannot find 10 mins to talk about their child, you know they ignore everything else that happens to the child in that home. The t.v and game console are the babysitters.. or older siblings.

[Luciferous]

3. I've gone to every one of my daughter's conferences. I don't

understand why some parents don't bother. But that's probably why the kids in your district are failing- if the parents aren't involved, the kids usually don't do well.

[dflprincess]

8. But when the kids don't do well, it's always the teachers who get blamed

never the parents.

I say if teachers wind up getting "merit pay" based on how well their students do on standardized tests - then parents need to be fined when they can't be bothered to be involved. And employers who don't give paid leave for parent/teacher conferences should also be fined.

(note: I am not, nor have I ever been a teacher. Fortunately for children everywhere, I always knew I'd be a bad one and never considered it.)

[MUAD_DIB]

5. I know that this would go over like a lead baloon, but

it is to bad that you couldn't give demerits to the parents or a follow-up letter thanking them for their absence.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I've never understood why we can't figure out a way to hold parents accountable

The kids are important enough for us to try, aren't they?

[OhioBlue]

6. I'm sorry you had a bad day.

Everyone I know tries to make it a priority to go to parent/teacher conferences. My sister-in-law even missed my grandma's calling hours to go for my niece. But, I do remember that my parents rarely went. My dad was shy and often worked later than the conferences lasted, my step-mom wasn't and still isn't really parent material and probably felt too intimidated. My mom - since she wasn't custodial parent at the time, probably didn't even know about them... 11% is horrible - but I would guess there's a lot of reasons that it was so low, that doesn't have anything to do with you or the parent's lack of caring. I'm not trying to make excuses... the 11% is just really sad... I'm only trying to make you feel a little bit better by suggesting some of parents care but had to work, had other obligations, felt intimidated or just didn't know.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. They could have had a phone conference

[bluestateguy]

7. If the President of the United States can find time to go to his daughters PT conferences

So can everybody else.

Deadbeat parents.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. That's a great point

:)

Thanks!

[noamnety]

45. Well, the president is a little more privileged than most parents.

He has a job where he can set his own schedule, he's not going to be fired if he decides he needs a particular night off. He's in a two parent household. He has transportation - he doesn't have to worry that his car needs repairs and public transit requires a two mile walk in snow, or that it shuts down at 6pm in his town. He's not disabled.

Comparing what the president is able to do to what a single parent in poverty is able to do is stretching.

[Better Today]

15. I went a few times, but then quit, it was never worth it.

It's not like I didn't hear daily reports from the kids at dinner. The report card gives the academic info, so I didn't need a teacher to discuss that with me. I'm sorry you think that parents not showing is a reflection of their interest in their children instead of recognizing the possibility that it's a reflection of the value of previous teacher conferences.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. So it's the teacher's fault

The dentist is unpleasant as well yet most of us manage to get there and deal with it. As a parent I feel my kids are worth a few minutes spent talking to their teachers twice a year. But that's just me I guess.

Thanks for playing!

[Better Today]

26. You are intentionally misinterpreting my post. I did not it was teachers'

fault. It is however not necessarily a reflection of a parent's care or interest in their own children as you try to suggest but could be in part or in whole a learned response from other conferences.

The dentist isn't a reasonable analogy since going to the dentist and the information or services provided are not ones that can be attained in any other way. To make your analogy work, you'd have to further expand it to include having children that came home and cleaned and checked my teeth daily, would I go to a dentist if I had that, no.

So just out of curiosity, what is it that you relay during these conferences that is so important in your opinion as a reflection of caring about the children? The few times I went all I heard was a brief outline of what the teacher intended on covering in class, five minutes of "your child is doing just fine," and then "oh, sorry we cannot have that detailed conversation about that (whatever I might have wanted to discuss regarding the children or the teacher's practices) because I have to see these other parents over here. Bye now."

Perhaps it is a reflection of my kids' upbringing and focus on education that made the conferences boring and of no value to my relationship with my kids, but the value was just not there.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Who else can tell parents how their children are doing in school?

Report cards are just a brief snip.

[Better Today]

28. You are kidding, right? You think the only ways for a parent to know

is by a report card and a teacher? I looked to my children, their attitudes, their comments about their days, their level of satisfaction and tolerance with themselves and those around them. A teacher's opinion of how they are doing would be irrelevant to what I would be witnessing with my own eyes since the whole point of how they are doing is school is relevant only if one looks at how that effects their whole selves and their whole lives.

You demonstrate one of the problems I see/saw with these conferences. They are based on the teacher "telling" the parent how the children are doing. I've not yet noticed you complaining that when parents don't come to the conferences you don't get the chance to learn how the school experience is effecting the home life, or what the parent might suggest to make your teaching of a particular child easier. You're not there for the benefit of the child as a whole, a give and take with the parent, based on the comments in your OP and through out the thread. It's all, "parents should be listening to me," with no "I need to listen to the parents also."

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. You're nit picking now

Of course a teacher is going to have a better understanding of a child's ACADEMIC progress than a parent. And it's not the least bit arrogant to make that statement.

[Better Today]

30. As I said, I think you demonstrate and over-blown opinion of your POV

and a lack of recognition of the value of parents' information that they would/could bring to the table regarding an overall successful endeavors in academia. This attitude that you display, is a primary reason I had no use for parent/teacher conferences. . . because it isn't a conversation, it's a lecture, it's just a verbal report card, totally one-sided and based on what one teacher can glean in one year of exposure to the child (if not only a semester).

I assure you that if parents thought the parent/teacher conferences were worthwhile for their children, you'd have better attendance, you don't. And to suggest that all but 2 parents out of your class don't care about their kids completely exemplifies the problem you likely have connecting with parents.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. And I am sure you know far more about the parents I work with than I do

How dare I assume they didn't come because they don't give a shit. It's actually because of MY attitude.

Thanks for the insight! :hi:

[Catshrink]

32. Isn't it amazing how nonteachers know so much more about

education than teachers? It never fails to amaze and amuse me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. The anonymity of the internets is a wonderful thing

For all we know that poster doesn't even have children. For that matter, how does anyone here know I am a teacher? Maybe I run the milkshake machine at McDonald's?

And seriously, if that milkshake machine doesn't try to argue with me, I just may decide that's a better gig!

:rofl:

[Catshrink]

34. If you ran the milkshake machine at McD's you'd make more money/hr.

:rofl: (not really :rofl:)

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. Could I eat for free?

:rofl:

[Catshrink]

36. I doubt it...

but would you want to? (eat McD's that is)

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. Oh yeah

Well, could I maybe sneak a free iced coffee once in awhile? I really like their iced coffee:)

[Better Today]

37. I agree they don't give a shit about the conference, I think you're wrong

to extend that to the concept that they don't give a shit about the children as you have commented many times. Your attitude sucks imo, I am shocked at the idea that you want to assess blame on parents but are incensed when someone suggests it might be some other problem including your desire put blame and derogatory broad brush paint on parents.

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. You must have missed my other post

I am not a teacher. I actually work the milkshake machine at McDonald's.

[Catshrink]

40. Yeah, it's all about you.

Why not just show up to show support for your child's teacher? Yeah, I know, that would be a waste of your time.

[noamnety]

42. Woah, what?

I don't need parents feeling obligated to show up just as a sign of support for me - as a teacher, the conference isn't about my ego.

[Catshrink]

43. Parents go with their kids to the doctor, right?

Even though they know the kid is healthy. So why should the parent go just to hear the doctor say, "Kid's doing find, see you next year." This is the logic.

[noamnety]

44. Not an appropriate analogy

That's the only time there's a chance for doctors to diagnose problems.

Teachers have access to kids daily, and send home progress reports and report cards - it ends up being a weekly feedback cycle of about every 5 weeks - in addition to daily homework that parents can see the grades on. If a teacher sees a problem, they are able to pick up a phone and call the parent.

But if you want to force the analogy ... Parents certainly don't have an obligation to bring a kid to the doctor to ensure the doctor doesn't feel neglected. We can all appreciate the role doctors play in our communities without having a moral obligation to take kids to the doctor to make the doctor feel good about themselves. When I have an appointment with them - or when my kid does - you can be damned sure it's all about me or my daughter, it's not about going to the doctor as a show of support for them.

[noamnety]

41. I understand where you are coming from.

I went to most of my kid's conferences I think. But there were times that I was out of town on business, and being a single parent there's just not much I could do about that. And, frankly, sometimes getting her to before school day care, working 8 or 9 hours at a high stress job, picking her up after her after school day care, I thought the best thing for both of us was to go home and spend quality time together, rather than downing fast food and racing right back to school. And as she got older, she was more involved in community theatre, voice lessons, etc. So I was spending lots of time driving her to rehearsals, watching them, I was also coaching science olympiad and odyssey of the mind.

Sometimes the over-committed families need to look at priorities and - like you said - value. Racing around for a night instead of staying at home to wait in lines for an hour to have 5 minute meetings of "your daughter's doing just fine, a pleasure to have in class" just didn't always rank high. I'm sure some teachers interpreted that as me being uninvolved in her life, apathetic. Those teachers were free to draw their own conclusions ... but in the 13 years of conferences I had, there were only 2 I can identify as being moderately useful or substantive. One was the teacher misidentifying my daughter's boredom as being illiterate, the other was me chewing out a social studies teacher for passing out geography materials that didn't even acknowledge the Soviet Union was no longer one country. If your materials are outdated, that's fine - but at least have the decency to make that a teaching point in the class - acknowledge that boundaries have changed and talk about that.

As a teacher, it's depressing to have to commit to being available for conferences and have a low turnout. But our obligation is to be there for them. And if we have something we feel the parent really needs to know about, generally we have access to the parents' phone numbers, and increasingly to their email addresses as well. It's not like we aren't able to contact them if we want to tell them something useful. One of the worst things we can do I think is make assumptions about their parenting skills based on not being able to attend a meeting on a particular day that they had no input on scheduling. If my doctor called and said they scheduled me for a routine physical at a particular time at their convenience, odds are I wouldn't be able to make it, and in the absence of any negative symptoms I probably wouldn't inconvenience myself to make it work. That doesn't mean I don't care about my health.

What would make more sense to me in general is instead of having a full night of conferences twice a year, have teachers available for a block of time before or after student performances - so parents are already at the school for another reason, and don't have to arrange a separate trip for a potentially low value meeting. I think more parents would be interested in stopping in for a 5 minute chat with a teacher if they are already there anyway. They could even be set up so conferences are limited to parents whose kids aren't performing, so students' performances wouldn't be impacted by a negative conference. If the choir has a performance, hold conference for nonchoir kids directly before that. That would encourage wider audiences for performances, it would encourage teachers to stay for those performances, teachers wouldn't have a wasted night sitting around for no reason if attendance is low.

[Tumbulu]

16. There are so many parents who just should not have had children

and I get furious when I hear the teachers blamed for the poor performance of these unfortunate kids.

I see it everywhere. The children who have parents that care help them with homework, go to school meetings, are involved. And it is not simply a money thing, or a job thing. It is a willingness to get involved. There are plenty of middle and higher income parents who really do not put themselves out at all for their children.

And the children with not involved parents have a much harder time.

To hold teachers accountable for all these bad parents is simply criminal, imo.

I send you my sympathy and thanks for trying.

[glowing]

18. You are sooo right about that.. Parents who should have thought twice about

the consequences of a "good night" or who are too self-centered to be responsible.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. No it is not a money thing

I worked summer school for about 10 years at the most expensive private school in this city. And there were just as many parents there who didn't return phone calls or come to school to meet with teachers.

[Reader Rabbit]

19. That sounds a lot like my school.

It varies from year to year, but this year was pretty bad. My team and I see about 75–80 kids during the course of our day. I think we had 15 parents this year. Still, it beats the turnout we had four years ago—a whopping eight parents!

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. My schools are elementary

I don't approve but understand when parents of older kids don't come to conferences. But kindergarteners?

I taught 1st grade for years and it blew me away every year that so many parents didn't come for conferences. How can you have a 6 year old child and not want to meet the adult they spend the majority of their waking hours with? :crazy:

[here_is_to_hope]

23. At our daughters public school, we

almost have to stand in line for these things.
Always crowded and quite fun.
We do have great communication with her teacher via email too so we are always up to date on any issues.
Maybe the 17 percent unemployment has a good side, we all have time.

[izzybeans]

24. That is very sad.

Definitely a testament to your dedication though. I've never quite got how in the world we have arrived at blaming the teachers and the teachers only. These stories about absent parents with regard to their child's development are too frequent not to be a major topic of discussion. Teachers are an easy target, especially when parents are working more and more for less and less, so the teaching profession becomes an easy dumping ground for the intellectually lazy.

There are reasons why the strongest correlates of test scores (as if that's what matters, but just an example) happen to be the Socioeconomic factors(and the interrelated demographics) of the surrounding neighborhood that define the attendance boundaries (e.g. access to early-childhood development resources for the family, time at work vs. home for working class families, nutritional deficiencies, the cultural capital one needs for the motivation to succeed in school, etc.). However this discussion is rarely had outside of the schools. Rather than sit and blame teachers we need to be seeking ways to empower parents so that they have the time and resources they need to raise their children from birth. Currently we spend more on daycare for our children then my parents spent on my college education. Imagine what that means for the working poor.

Thank you for your service. I wish our country supported your efforts more sincerely.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Thank you