Parent/Teacher Conferences

We recently had P/T conferences and it was busy week, but reassuring to be able to speak with a few parents about their child's progress in school. The conferences I had were with parents I very rarely hear from or see throughout the school year. Why is it that some parents are not taking an active role in their child's education? What can I do to get them to become more involved? I had two parents not show up and it was a bit disappointing, I did not recieve a phone call or an e-mail. However, I was able to reschedule one of the conferences in which the parent came in later in the week.

I have been spending a lot of time with a few students in my class on interventions and working in small group or a 1:1 setting. It would be fantastic if there were more support offered at home to reinforce the things we have been working on in class. I currently have three students who have been involved in numerous interventions with math and reading to help them make progress in these areas. They have spent time working with me 1:1, in small group, and with other mentors recieving intervention support. These three children have went through our problem solving team and in the past few months have been referred for further evaluation. I have spent much of my time in reading, math, and writing with these three students. Despite much of my time and effort with them, I have seen slight progress in these areas. If I leave these students to work individually, rarely any work gets accomplished. This past week, I have started to see our investment in these students begin to pay off. They were able to demonstrate some progress within the area of math. Even though they were not able to work independantly, they were able to show slight progress in solving math problems. It has been frustrating as we have invested so much time and effort and very little progress is being made. As a result, when I have completed my small group work with these students, I have been trying to give them more time in working with compass learning to help with additional skills they may need.

As a result, I feel that a few of my students who are at grade level and also need extra assistance in some areas are not receiving the assistance from me that I need to be providing them. How can I continue my work with my lower students while offering the support to those students who could benfit from more assistance?

The parents that I met with during conferences reassured me they would continue to work hard at home to better asisst their child with math and reading. My goal is to continue to touch base with these parents and check in to see how additional practice and reinforcement at home is going.