By Ramar Jackson
Twice a year classes come to a halt and students must come in with their families to have parent-advisor conferences. These conferences are mandatory meetings for students as well as their parents to find out more about your classes. During these meetings, advisors give a break down of each class, along with strengths and weaknesses in this class. These meetings take place in order to hear about what our teachers have to say, but too often, it feels as though these meetings aren’t giving much new information. Conferences seem to only repeat what has already been written within the comments on our interims, so it makes it feel as though our journey wasn’t worth it, especially for students traveling long distances to school. We can improve the quality of these conferences by simply meeting directly with teachers rather than having advisors summarize the comments that have already been put in our interims.
For more than a decade, LREI has made it so that rather than meeting with our actual teachers, students and parents meet with an advisor. The meetings are set up so that we can have a 20-30 minute rundown of all of our classes and how we are doing in each class. This has been the way that LREI structures conferences because they feel as though advisors would have a more balanced opinion on what they actually think is going on. We have the same advisor over the course of four years, which means that they know us fairly well. This allows for them to speak to teachers if they feel as though something is wrong with our report, as well as examine our growth and process from one year to the next. The main purposes for meeting with an advisor is to give parents an opportunity to check if their student is keeping up with their academic standings. It also is intended to provide a space for conversations that may not be taking place at home, such as conversations about areas in need of growth.
Many schools throughout New York have parent-teacher conferences, but they are very different than what we do here at LREI. While LREI only gives families the opportunity to meet with advisors, other schools, including the lower and middle school, allow for family meetings with teachers. Meeting with teachers gives a much better understanding of how students are doing, rather than having another person try and summarize all of the work you have been doing in their classes.
Although parent-advisor conferences allow for us to have a more efficient and personal discussion about our classes and grades, it doesn’t give students everything they need to know. Student aren’t getting to hear what exactly their teachers think, which makes it harder to make changes to their behavior and work ethic. Parent-advisor conferences are also flawed since some advisors may do more to gain information than others. Some advisors might have more information on certain classes than they do on others, which leaves students in a position without important information.
Similar to the middle school, the high school can have a two-day rotation where families are able to meet with the student’s teachers, as well as have a small advisor meeting at the end. With this meeting, families can get more in depth with any problems the student might have in this class. At the same time, families meeting with teachers encourages a better connection with the school. The goal for advisor conferences was to give parents a chance to come in and get a better sense of what’s going on. A family-teacher conference gives this opportunity along with much more.
The main problem that would come up when trying to conduct family-teacher conferences would be the schedule and deciding if there would be enough time for that many meetings to take place. When teachers have several different classes of about 10-16 students, it becomes a challenge for them to find time to meet with each family. A way this can be approached would to have a brief 5-15 minute conversation about with each family that gives an overview and the student’s current situation. This allows for the family to have time to meet with the teacher and also acquire a greater understanding of what’s happening. For this to work, the school can have the same system as the middle school and have two days for this to happen.
Although advisor teacher conferences have been a way of having more informed families, it hasn’t done its job fully. It hasn’t given the families the opportunity to meet teachers as well as gain all the information they should know. Having a two-day rotation of parent teacher conferences would fulfill all of these tasks and more.