Thank you for your commitment to conferences and for your efforts to work with teachers in the best interests of your child. I have been around at a variety of schools over a number of years. It is NOT always true that parents are eager to hear the teacher’s perspective on how the year is going and to actively engage in thinking together about how to best support a child to grow. This approach is common at CA, though, and it matters.

One of my wife’s and my strategies for going into a Parent/Teacher Conference was to directly invite the teacher to share “what we needed to know” about our son or daughter—the good stuff and the bad. As parents, we have a great understanding of certain aspects of who our child is; what we don’t have, though, is a sense of how they are doing in the school setting or in their ability to meet the expectations of each grade’s curriculum. Asking for direct and unvarnished feedback sometimes opened our eyes to skills that my son or daughter needed to invest more effort in developing. Sure, sometimes it was great to hear how “wonderful” our kids were, but in the long run, we most appreciated those teachers who told us what we needed to know and helped us create a plan for future success.
 
I know from speaking with Middle School teachers on Wednesday and Thursday just how important we feel this shared time to be. I hope you, too, left your conferences feeling that you child is known, appreciated, and cared for, AND that we have important skills to help them develop in the coming months.
 
If there is any way that I can be supportive, please do not hesitate to contact me.
 
Best,
Bill