Parent Conference Night

Almost every public and private school will have a parent conference night. In recent years there has been a trend to also have an "open house" night just prior to the start of school. The "open house" night of day is a great way to introduce new students to the school and to make them more comfortable on their first day of classes. Often students have been sent a schedule of their classes and will be able to go around the school, locate their classrooms, and meet with their teachers.

Typically each term there is a parent conference night (or day) when parents are asked to come to the school and meet with their child's teachers and with administrators. This is an important event for everyone concerned. Teachers are supposed to be in contact with parents on an ongoing basis about students and in particular with regards to any students that may have the potential of failure. This notification must be in sufficient time that a student has a reasonable opportunity to improve their grade. In general it is considered inappropriate for a teacher to fail a student that has not had their parents or guardians contacted or consulted during a parent conference.

Merely sending a "progress report" home is not really sufficient proof that some contact has been made. Even when the progress report is returned with what appears to be a parent or guardian's signature it is possible that this is not the parent's signature or they may not fully understand the significance of the progress report. A parent that speaks

There are situations which will require failure for example a student with excessive absences may simply have been out of school so many days that by county or state standards they must fail. It is important that teachers review the school, county, state and federal guidelines on such requirements. Even when it is obvious the student "must" fail they must still be notified in sufficient time to reasonable have an option. In some cases a student might be able to receive teaching at home from the district. This is especially true with ill students.

On a typical parent conference night out of over 120 students it is not that uncommon for a regular teacher to have less than 10 parents attend. If the teacher is teaching an advanced placement type of class they may have excellent parent participation. In some cases teachers with special needs classes may also have rather good participation.

Incentives could be introduced to spur participation. Local businesses may provide some incentives. There should be enough incentives to convince parents to attend. Some parents may have children in different schools and have to choose the school conference night to attend. To prevent this problem many schools now hold their conferences on different nights depending upon the level. Elementary, junior high and high school will often coordinate their conference nights to be on different nights. The move to conference nights was thought to help improve participation thinking that parents were unable to come at a time when they would be working. What has often happened however is that this shift has only made it possible for a different segment of the parental population to attend with some improvement in overall participation.