Parent teacher conferences in high school?

[Anonymous]

If your child is doing fine in classes, do you sign up for conferences? I always went in elementary and middle school, but don’t know if high school teachers see conferences as a pain in the butt, or welcome. My kid’s grades are fine, so I would just be asking if their is anything about his classroom behavior or performance I should be aware of.
What says DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Yes I do. (There was just a thread on this- you should find it)

[Anonymous]

As a parent and a teacher, yes, please request a parent teacher conference. You can still ask about your child's performance, behavior and how to best prepare them for college or exams.

[Anonymous]

As a parent and teacher, request one if you have a specific question, concern or want to tell the teacher information. Do not request one to simply say hi or to tell the teacher you have no concerns. It’s fine to ask about long term planning, but I just had rounds of conferences with freshman parents concerned over college admissions. You need to speak to the counselor, not me, about that. Also, I do not have a list of SAT tutors or any special advice on how to raise SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

If you don't have a specific concern, then don't. Teachers have enough on their plates. Just send an email instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't have a specific concern, then don't. Teachers have enough on their plates. Just send an email instead.

+1 Two of my three kids have/had IEPs and the only meetings/conferences I had were for the kids with IEPs. My NT child didn't need me to have meetings with her teachers. I did, though, always attend Back to School Night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't have a specific concern, then don't. Teachers have enough on their plates. Just send an email instead.

+1 Two of my three kids have/had IEPs and the only meetings/conferences I had were for the kids with IEPs. My NT child didn't need me to have meetings with her teachers. I did, though, always attend Back to School Night.

My DH is a high school teacher. If your child is doing fine, please don't schedule a meeting. Teachers are SWAMPED and just trying to keep their head above water.

[Anonymous]

As a HS teacher, don't request one unless you have specific concerns.

I love when I get an email from a parent who says something like: I am happy with my kid's progress in your class so far. Is there anything I should be made aware of or do we need a conference?

It's so much better than me blocking off time for a parent to come whose kid is doing great just to hear me say that. Meaning, they come in because they feel obligated, not because they have concerns.

[Anonymous]

I generally have done the conferences, at least for the core academic subjects. Our school has a day and a half off of classes for these to take place and each conference is limited to 10 minutes, the last few years they have been by Zoom. I value putting a face to a name, hearing about what is going well and what could be improved (even the kid "doing well" generally has area where they can grow) so that I can support that at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a HS teacher, don't request one unless you have specific concerns.

I love when I get an email from a parent who says something like: I am happy with my kid's progress in your class so far. Is there anything I should be made aware of or do we need a conference?

It's so much better than me blocking off time for a parent to come whose kid is doing great just to hear me say that. Meaning, they come in because they feel obligated, not because they have concerns.

This. One of my kids is dealing with a horrible emotional thing, but academically she has straight As. I’m not draining teachers anymore further. I sent an email that said “If you don’t already know, Larla is coping with _____. Please let us know if you see any of the following. Thanks for all you do.”

[Anonymous]

Our HS told us teachers/counselors would contact parents for conferences as necessary. Fine with me. DC is happy and doing well, no need for us to touch base.

[Anonymous]

We didn’t for our freshman. We just met all of his teachers face to face at back to school night, when we went through his whole daily schedule and listened to each teacher’s presentation about the upcoming year. He’s doing well, and there have been no surprises based on what we learned at back to school night so there didn’t seem to be a need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I generally have done the conferences, at least for the core academic subjects. Our school has a day and a half off of classes for these to take place and each conference is limited to 10 minutes, the last few years they have been by Zoom. I value putting a face to a name, hearing about what is going well and what could be improved (even the kid "doing well" generally has area where they can grow) so that I can support that at home.

I understand, but as one of those content teachers, I couldn’t finish all of the meetings in my allotted amount of time and spent ours in the evening doing them. I teach an AP math class so the majority of parents signed up. I smiled and said it was nice meeting them but it was a complete waste of my time when they only wanted to hear how great their child with the A average is doing. Even if only 90 parents sign up, which is not uncommon in some schools for some parents, that’s 15 hours. We need to take a couple of breaks in the day so 1.5 days isn’t enough. That’s assuming everyone logs in on time, no one missed and wants to reschedule.

[Anonymous]

We didn't. Kids have all A/B and there are limited slots. I saved the slots for parents who needed them. Until high school, we did them religiously and were super involved with their teachers, but they are fine and I will reach out as needed.

[Anonymous]

I skipped them. High school is time for DD to start figuring things out in her own.