Keep your parents informed

Today was nothing but parent-teacher conferences. I had 13 total and 11 of them showed up. That was pretty good considering I only expected half.

One event was that a Spanish-speaking parent of one of my students was there with her son and met with 4 of us. The whole time she seemed disconnected or uninterested until I started talking. Even though her son was able to translate for her, hearing me talk in Spanish opened up a channel she didn't get with the 3 other teachers. She was looking up at me and asking me questions. In other words, she was actively engaged in a conversation with me rather than being talked to. Also, at this point, I had gotten through talking to 2 other Spanish-speakers. I was getting increasingly better at it. I felt good after the last conference.

Anyways, what I learned today was that as a large group of stakeholders in our school, it is important to keep parents informed. I would say our school does a pretty good job of giving our parents opportunities to be informed. However, unless we are proactive in getting the message across to them, they will not get it. The trend is that students greatly improve in those aspects after phone calls and conferences. Keeping parents informed helps us by having their support in completing homework and their behavior in class.