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Parent/teacher conferences are something that happen twice a school year, every school year, generally from the time a child starts school as a kindergartener to the time they graduate as a senior. At the conferences, parents and teachers are able to meet and discuss the student’s strengths and weaknesses.
In the earlier grades, such as kindergarten and first grade, it is unusual for teachers to have below ninety percent attendance at conferences. However, by the time students reach high school the attendance rate drops to thirty percent or below.
As evidenced by the decline, parents and students alike don’t find parent/teacher conferences as important as they had previously as the years go on.
Math teacher Cheryl Hadley believes there are many reasons for this drop in participation of parent/teacher conferences, with the main reason being that students’ grades are online, readily available and updated regularly.
Another reason is that school becomes less and less the parents’ responsibility. For example, if a student is struggling in a class because they are lazy, it is their job to talk to their teacher in order to get their grade up, not their mom’s.
The lack of participation in parent/teacher conferences can be an issue. Hadley averages about thirty percent of her students or parents who come in to conference, but half of those students who come already have A’s in her class.
“I would like more of those parents whose children are struggling to come in,” Hadley said.
With such low attendance at parent/teacher conferences, it is unclear whether or not they are even necessary. They may end up being a complete waste of a teacher’s time if no students come in who have issues. However, it is important for parents and teachers to be able to meet and discuss issues in person.
“You need to have that option to be able to communicate face-to-face,” said Hadley.
Parents who attend the conferences agree.
“When my child is struggling with grades, it’s helpful to go in and talk to the teacher to find the problem,” said Katerina Wheeler, mother of junior Shandon Wheeler. “The teachers are more apt to help with grades if we go to parent/teacher conferences.”
Many teachers, Hadley included, agree they are more willing to work with struggling students’ grades when nearing the end of a quarter or semester if that student has been working on improvement the entire quarter, and especially if they came to parent/teacher conferences. Teachers are more prone to care about a student’s grade if they see that student caring about their own grade.
