Week 12 Reflection

November 9th - 13th, 2009

Parent/teacher conferences were held today after school, and the only thing missing was parents. To my complete surprise and disappointment, only one set of parents made the effort to come -- in the entire eighth grade! When I was in middle and high school, parent/teacher conferences seemed like they were almost mandatory for parents. These nights were practically as highly attended as open house (which also had a shockingly low attendance for SMS's 2009 open house). I can distinctly remember my father making the effort to go to most of the parent/teacher conferences for me and my brother when we were in middle and high school. While he didn't have the educational background to help us with most of our homework, I appreciate his efforts to be informed now more than ever.

Sadly, the only set of parents that did schedule an appointment belonged to a hard-working, but shy girl that had nothing but positive reports from the eighth grade team. Yet, I'm not sure this is a bad thing -- it's important for every parent to be involved in their child's education, regardless of the student's level of achievement. But it is disappointing that the parents who really needed to be there did not make the effort.

I'm convinced that it's not because parents weren't informed: the conference information was posted in the newsletter and on Edline. Also, teachers were available from 4-7 PM today, which leaves plenty of time for parents to come after work, dinner, etc.

After our one conference, one teacher on the eighth grade team said, "and you want to know why this specific class is struggling more than previous eighth grade classes? This is why" (pointing to the empty conference schedule). It really is shocking to continuously find how many of these students are lacking such basic, fundamental skills. I don't think I can place all the blame on parents considering my own father wasn't very supportive academically and I did well. But my father was invested in my education in other ways. He never grew tired of telling me "I just want you to have more opportunities than I did," and I know that I did better because he cared.

Coincidentally, I picked up a copy of Times magazine today at the gym and found an article about parent academies. Three US cities (Philadelphia, Miami, and Boston) have developed programs for parents to help them become more involved. Helping Children Prepare for Tests and 9th Grade Transition to High School are examples of the typical workshops offered for free to parents in these urban areas. Some of the more unique courses offered include Keeping It Real: Straight Talk Between Parents and Teachers!, Feeling at Home with Numbers, and Sexting: Safeguarding Children from Misuse of Technology.

The woman who established Parent University explained her mission with a truth that all educators can agree: "If you want students to actually do better, then you need to ground that change in the fabric of a community -- and that means getting parents engaged." And after skimming the list of classes offered, it's easy to see that academic skills aren't the major concern of what educators think parents need the most. Many parents may be able to revise an essay or review math problems; the issue is that they don't know about daily life and politics in their child's school. These classes offer parents a deeper understanding of policies, procedures, state test scores, etc.

The only weakness I see in this program is that despite the fact that these classes are free, it's worth assuming that the parents who enroll are already invested in their children's education -- just like the only set of parents who came to conferences today. However, the people who work for these parent academies have also recognized this problem, so they've promoted these workshops in all types of public places where these parents can be found.

Parental involvement seems to be a sore subject for many of the teachers that I've met throughout my student teaching, and I can understand why. Teachers already have such an immense responsibility to the students. It's quite an investment of time and effort to not only be reaching out to the students, but their parents as well. But the correlation between successful students and supportive parents is too significant to be ignored. After witnessing the unbelievable attendance at parent/teacher conferences, I am thankful to have found hope in this article today. Even though we may think that parents are becoming less involved in their children's education, there really are people out there who work hard to solve this problem by developing such community outreaches.