Report cards and parent teacher conferences

[Anonymous]

This is just event. Got a Robo call from school last night. Report cards are coming home on the 12th and children's backpacks. So my conference for my DD is on the 11th. I have no way of being able to have a meaningful conversation with her teacher because I don't have her report card yet. In case you're wondering yes I did get The interim report that card and I can base Her progress off of that. However, i do feel this is planned every year this way so that Parents can't question very much. Then when I do have questions I have to email the teacher and hope that she will give me five minutes to talk about my daughter. Vent over.

[Anonymous]

OP, is this your first parent-teacher conference? In my experience, the teacher has the child's report card at the parent-teacher conference. So if your worry is that you can't have a meaningful conversation because you don't know what's on the report card, then you can cross that off your list of worries, because you will know what's on the report card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, is this your first parent-teacher conference? In my experience, the teacher has the child's report card at the parent-teacher conference. So if your worry is that you can't have a meaningful conversation because you don't know what's on the report card, then you can cross that off your list of worries, because you will know what's on the report card.

Op here. Believe it or not this is my fourth conference. Teachers have had copies of her report card twice so far. So guess I have a 50% chance of the teacher actually having a copy.

[Anonymous]

Haven't you been seeing grades throughout the quarter? Nothing should be that shocking. Use the conference for the things you can't read on a report card...behavior, social questions, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven't you been seeing grades throughout the quarter? Nothing should be that shocking. Use the conference for the things you can't read on a report card...behavior, social questions, etc.

I agree -- there are plenty of things you can have a "meaningful conversation" with the teacher about, that don't require you having your child's report card.

[Anonymous]

Big picture I agree with these posters - you won't need the report card for the conference, because the teacher should know how your child is doing both overall and with respect to any areas that are struggles or high achievement - and really, the teachers mostly speak in generalizations anyway. I find these conferences pretty useless and impersonal, in fact (veteran of 8 years of them over 2 kids).

With respect to the specifics on the report card, though, I don't think the teacher will remember every I vs P vs ES because the geading rubric is somewhat arbitrary, so I have found that I doesn't always match the teacher's own assessment - maybe match isn't the exact right word choice, because it is not that they differ tremendously, but the specific grade components don't necessarily match the teacher's overall assessment of performance. For example the teacher may think the child is strong in math, yet the child "only" has a P grade in it (because the child was catching on quickly and getting everything right, but didn't orally demonstrate to the teacher some comprehension beyond what was being taught). Or the child may get an ES in a particular category of the writing components (because the child may have gotten an ES on the one assignment he did in that component), yet the teacher basically thinks the child is an average writer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big picture I agree with these posters - you won't need the report card for the conference, because the teacher should know how your child is doing both overall and with respect to any areas that are struggles or high achievement - and really, the teachers mostly speak in generalizations anyway. I find these conferences pretty useless and impersonal, in fact (veteran of 8 years of them over 2 kids).
With respect to the specifics on the report card, though, I don't think the teacher will remember every I vs P vs ES because the geading rubric is somewhat arbitrary, so I have found that I doesn't always match the teacher's own assessment - maybe match isn't the exact right word choice, because it is not that they differ tremendously, but the specific grade components don't necessarily match the teacher's overall assessment of performance. For example the teacher may think the child is strong in math, yet the child "only" has a P grade in it (because the child was catching on quickly and getting everything right, but didn't orally demonstrate to the teacher some comprehension beyond what was being taught). Or the child may get an ES in a particular category of the writing components (because the child may have gotten an ES on the one assignment he did in that component), yet the teacher basically thinks the child is an average writer.

It's interesting that you should say that, because my experience from elementary-school conferences has always been: yes, that's my kid the teacher is talking about; yes, my kid does this; yes, my kid is like that.

[Anonymous]

My goal is to get my questions answered. I actually just don't want to go over the report card which is what the teachers seems focused on. You only have a few minutes. I often want to ask a question about social issues or classroom behavior etc.

[Anonymous]

OP, I too think it is ridiculous to not have the report card, but then again so are these 8 minute conferences. Your best bet is to plan a conference outside of these 2 days. I always do and I always get a much better conference. The teacher is not frazzled, you aren't waiting outside for 20-30min because the conference times fell behind. You have the report card in hand and can think of questions you want to ask. You have time to look at the work they put into the folders. I have 3 kids with my oldest in high school and I learned by the time very quickly to move my conference to another time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't you been seeing grades throughout the quarter? Nothing should be that shocking. Use the conference for the things you can't read on a report card...behavior, social questions, etc.

I agree -- there are plenty of things you can have a "meaningful conversation" with the teacher about, that don't require you having your child's report card.

But then if you get the report card and have a question, you do what? Ask for another appointment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't you been seeing grades throughout the quarter? Nothing should be that shocking. Use the conference for the things you can't read on a report card...behavior, social questions, etc.

I agree -- there are plenty of things you can have a "meaningful conversation" with the teacher about, that don't require you having your child's report card.

But then if you get the report card and have a question, you do what? Ask for another appointment?

Exactly. It's not hard. I usually send an email about one week in advance with my questions so that she can answer what she wants over email and is then prepared to answer my other questions face to face. Also - if you are concerned that the teacher won't have the report card - just request that she have a copy for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't you been seeing grades throughout the quarter? Nothing should be that shocking. Use the conference for the things you can't read on a report card...behavior, social questions, etc.

I agree -- there are plenty of things you can have a "meaningful conversation" with the teacher about, that don't require you having your child's report card.

But then if you get the report card and have a question, you do what? Ask for another appointment?

Exactly. It's not hard. I usually send an email about one week in advance with my questions so that she can answer what she wants over email and is then prepared to answer my other questions face to face. Also - if you are concerned that the teacher won't have the report card - just request that she have a copy for you.

Okay so you are saying since MCPS starts conferences before giving out report cards to parents and not all teachers have the report cards, that I (as a working parent) should have to schedule another conference once the report card comes in? right.....

[Anonymous]

For secondary school, parents have Edline and can see the MP1 grade, but many won't look before the conference anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But then if you get the report card and have a question, you do what? Ask for another appointment?

Exactly. It's not hard. I usually send an email about one week in advance with my questions so that she can answer what she wants over email and is then prepared to answer my other questions face to face. Also - if you are concerned that the teacher won't have the report card - just request that she have a copy for you.

Okay so you are saying since MCPS starts conferences before giving out report cards to parents and not all teachers have the report cards, that I (as a working parent) should have to schedule another conference once the report card comes in? right.....

I'm not the PP you're responding to, but no, I don't think that the PP is saying that. What I think the PP is saying: IF the teacher does not have the report card at the conference, AND IF you have questions about the report card once you receive it, THEN you can contact the teacher about those questions. If you can't do an in-person meeting, than there are other options.

[Anonymous]

I do have to agree with OP. The system could be better organized to provide feedback and I have found the last few years of ES conferences utterly useless. The teacher had no MAP test scores "ready" to provide (send me an email and I will email you the scores) and zero commentary on the report card difference between an ES and an I that was specific to my child. Just generically what those grades were suppose to represent. Why not have the teacher put some effort in and make this worth the time so I would not have to follow up later and also use up teachers time? Two straight years of conferences started out, "How do you think your child is doing?"---what a cop out!! But the good news is that the speed conferences in middle school have been great use of time and the teachers have been totally 100% prepared to talk about child's performance and areas of weakness.