Do you have APTT conferences at your school and how do you like it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting thread. My kid attended PK3 at a Title 1 school and I was never quite sure what these meetings were about. I didn't know that their primary purpose was for parents to help each other.

I remember how on one occasion, I missed a meeting because my child was sick, and afterwards the teacher said how unfortunate it was that I wasn't there because she had wanted me to tell the other parents about the things we were doing at home to help our child, who was doing very well, succeed. I just breathed a sigh of relief that I had dodged what I thought would have been an extremely awkward situation of me (the only white, UMC parent in the room) "educating" the other parents on how to improve their kids' performance. Especially since the truth was that we didn't do anything tangible - we never practiced anything academic at home (I didn't think it was necessary to do these things at age 3), and we didn't even read all that much because my child wasn't that interested in books at the time. Obviously our home environment still somehow furthered my child's success, but there wasn't anything that I could have told the other parents to do.

Oh god no. How incredibly awkward. And why on earth would it be better to hear it from other parents than from a teacher?

PP here and I agree. I was also surprised that the teacher (who was black) didn't seem to see how awkward this would have been.

Exactly. Because I'm sure they've been told a million times already to read to their child and talk with their child and take them to activities and whatnot. But what's really going on with my daughter's reading is that I was an early reader, and my sister was an early reader, and my mother and father were both early readers, and I didn't really do anything special to teach her to read, she just got there faster for whatever reason. What is there to say, really?

[Anonymous]

Dislike intensely, and I don't go to them any more.

The way that ours were run showed student's test score rankings. Students were anonymized and each parent had the key for their own students (which was fine), but it's not appropriate or useful to display ranking data like that. It's far more useful to figure out where each child is in relationship to what the grade level expectations are, and what they should tackle next.

I also found the activities provided for the parents to do with their kids at home were completely undifferentiated, and really not helpful for my particular kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dislike intensely, and I don't go to them any more.

The way that ours were run showed student's test score rankings. Students were anonymized and each parent had the key for their own students (which was fine), but it's not appropriate or useful to display ranking data like that. It's far more useful to figure out where each child is in relationship to what the grade level expectations are, and what they should tackle next.

I also found the activities provided for the parents to do with their kids at home were completely undifferentiated, and really not helpful for my particular kid.

Our activites are differentiatable, but they're not anything special. Like a packet of alphabet beads and pipe cleaners to string them on.

I don't know why the scores of the other kids are shown. It's not like they're a representative sample. I would rather see a diagram with developmental ranges. Especially in the younger grades where things vary so much and chronological age gaps still feel big

[Anonymous]

My problem with APTT is that they only address academic growth. I am more concerned at this point in my child's growth from a social/emotional aspect. Is he being kind to other? Is he respecting the teachers? etc. Because this isnt addressed at the meeting, I have to schedule an additional conference to touch base on this. I get the general sense that the hope for APTT is that it will reduce the number of individual conferences.. which means that I feel like I am bothering the teacher to request the extra conference. Plus, I still attend APTT because I don't want to miss something there.. because I do find the examples to be helpful and I enjoy the opportunity to meet the other parents. I like seeing the data and setting measurable goals. I understand the privacy concerns... but perhaps am less bothered than some about such things.

Basically, I think they are fine but not a sufficient replacement for regular conferences.