Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they were mandatory. The crappy kids parents never come to conferences.

Naturally...because the "crappy kids" became like that because of "crappy parents"

Wow. Way to be an asshole. What, exactly, qualifies a child as "crappy"? And how do you know that their parents are "crappy"? Does not coming to a PEP rally qualify a parent as crappy right off the bat? I'm a single mom and I work. I can't always afford to drop everything to be at a 1 hour meeting at 5:00 on a Monday that isn't going to tell me anything about MY child. Not helpful.

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS SENTIMENT

No updates on how the new sessions went?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they were mandatory. The crappy kids parents never come to conferences.

Naturally...because the "crappy kids" became like that because of "crappy parents"

Wow. Way to be an asshole. What, exactly, qualifies a child as "crappy"? And how do you know that their parents are "crappy"? Does not coming to a PEP rally qualify a parent as crappy right off the bat? I'm a single mom and I work. I can't always afford to drop everything to be at a 1 hour meeting at 5:00 on a Monday that isn't going to tell me anything about MY child. Not helpful.

Now that report cards come out, I wonder how many Sligo Creek parents will be scheduling parent-teacher conferences. I also wonder if this new policy will encourage teachers to rate more children as doing fine just to avoid the onslaught of requests for conferences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, does any of this parent/school time involve parents talking to teachers directly about individual kids? B/c schools have plenty of opportunity for spin and not enough opportunity for one on one.

Bingo. I don't want 3 hours with teacher and other parents. That's just another version of Back to School Night, and while I find that useful, I only need it once. What I NEED is a period of time where the teacher's whole attention is focused on communication with me about my child.

Agreed. I need to know my kid's areas of strength and weakness. Unfortunately, SCES has decided that this new route is the way to go...

Anonymous wrote:I wish they were mandatory. The crappy kids parents never come to conferences.

Naturally...because the "crappy kids" became like that because of "crappy parents"

I wish they were mandatory. The crappy kids parents never come to conferences.

Anonymous wrote:So, does any of this parent/school time involve parents talking to teachers directly about individual kids? B/c schools have plenty of opportunity for spin and not enough opportunity for one on one.

No, it does not.

Anonymous wrote:So, does any of this parent/school time involve parents talking to teachers directly about individual kids? B/c schools have plenty of opportunity for spin and not enough opportunity for one on one.

Bingo. I don't want 3 hours with teacher and other parents. That's just another version of Back to School Night, and while I find that useful, I only need it once. What I NEED is a period of time where the teacher's whole attention is focused on communication with me about my child.

So, does any of this parent/school time involve parents talking to teachers directly about individual kids? B/c schools have plenty of opportunity for spin and not enough opportunity for one on one.

PEP Discussion: Ms. Swift, Principal
Shared the Parents Engagement Partnership (PEP) at Sligo Creek Elementary information page that was sent home in Friday Folders from 9/26/2013.
The school wants to build community and support within our classrooms and share information with parents. This method has been used in other schools and proven to be very successful in supporting the performance of children in school.
Parents will be giving up a 15-minute conference to spend 3 hours with your child’s teacher over the entire year.
The school and teachers are always open for to talk with parents about their child.
The goal is to increase communication and support all students in a thoughtful way.
Ask parents to hold off until after 11/11 to request individual parent teacher conferences, out of respect for the teachers and giving this approach a try.

Parents Engagement Partnership (PEP) will help us go further than the traditional parent-teacher conferences. Instead of a once-a-year conference, SCES teachers will host "PEP Rallies" three times during the school year.

Someone please pass me the Kool Aid.

So it is only Sligo Creek Elementary School doing this. I find it infuriating that we were told on Back to School night that "other schools" were doing this, too.

Anonymous wrote:Parent engagement sessions?!?! Oh my God. When will this foolishness end?

Seriously. This sounds ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:If I were you, I'd e-mail Diantha Swift and request a reinstatement of individual conferences. Would be best if a large group of parents pushed back.

And does she still report to Bronda Mills? You may want to follow up with her as well. Ms. Mills has been very reasonable in conversations that I have had with her.

Ms. Swift has been vocal in the past about keeping Sligo Creek issues in the school and not going outside. But you will likely need to force the issue to get it changed.

Exactly. Does your PTA have a listserve that many parents are part of? You can email everybody on there as well.
Go as public as possible, gather a large group of parents on your side and alert the higher-ups. My children are not at this school, but that's what I would do if they were.