I'd recommend following up with an email afterwards as well. We had a Parent-Teacher conference at which we thought some things got resolved, and then a month later our child reported being in trouble because of one of the issues we thought we had settled with a compromise. We made another appointment with the teacher, and she had no idea what we were talking about. I don't know if she'd forgotten, was lying, or what. Now I follow up with emails. "We appreciate your insight into Larla's approach to history. As we discussed, she's going to continue doing the annotations, but instead of writing a summary of every chapter she's going to make a bullet point list of important items. We'd be willing to check back in with you in a couple weeks to see how things are going. What do you think?"

Anonymous wrote:Follow on question -
If a group of parents have the same concerns about a given teacher, what is the best way to move forward. Four parents have been involved in an email chain and we all have the same issues. There are at least 3 more that have spoken to me personally.
Some of the issues are conduct (how she treats students and parents) and some are performance (homework and expectations).

Approach the principal as a group with a small cohort of the parents, ideally through the PTA President.

Follow on question -
If a group of parents have the same concerns about a given teacher, what is the best way to move forward. Four parents have been involved in an email chain and we all have the same issues. There are at least 3 more that have spoken to me personally.
Some of the issues are conduct (how she treats students and parents) and some are performance (homework and expectations).

Great ideas everyone! I'm so happy I asked.

Anonymous wrote:OP- Here
Does this read ok? Should I delete the text in bold or give that level of detail?

Ms XXX,
I am looking forward to hearing about Xxx's progress at our conference on Friday. While thinking about the meeting I’ve come up with a list of issues I would like to discuss. Firstly, we are still struggling with the reading logs and homework. I feel like amount of detail required and writing two summaries a day is asking too much for my fourth grader when it is on top of the other homework assigned for RELA. We do it because we must but it is a battle. I wonder if there would be other ways to accomplish this and would like to talk about other strategies if you are open to them. Secondly, I would like to talk to you about the use of Class Dojo points and the general atmosphere in the classroom.
Is this too much to cover in our meeting on Friday? I can set up a separate conference sometime next week if that would be better.
Thank you,
XXX




I really appreciate everyone's comments. PG Schools is one of the sane forums in DCUM.

I would do what PP suggests and use the conference to gather info to supplement another meeting that you'd presumably ask for right after the conference.

I understand your concerns, and the email is probably therapeutic for you because it makes you feel like you're getting it out there, but it lays too much out on the table and will annoy the teacher and put her on the defensive. Just mention at the conference you have more to discuss re: homework and expectations and classroom discipline/management. The take notes and follow up.