Ahhhh…. parent-teacher conferences! It’s that time of year again. Hopefully this year everyone can have face-to-face parent-teacher conferences. Our school is 100% back to face to face with the option to be virtual through a separate program.
As a principal, what do you do during parent-teacher conferences? Every year has been different. Year 18 is just as different. You heard correct! This is my 18th year as an elementary principal in charge of parent-teacher conferences. At this point, the process is easy.
Be visible:
Visibility is important and helpful. Parents and teachers like to see the principal around the building. Maybe it’s a safety thing. Maybe it’s knowing the principal is easily accessible. Regardless, it is a priority to be out and about on parent-teacher conference nights to keep a pulse on the building.
Be Prepared:
Most teachers have their go-to parent-teacher conference forms and templates. However, a quick search of TPT brings up multiple quality resources you can use. If the mention of TPT stops you in your tracks this may not be the blog for you. My support for teachers and their quality of work goes beyond my school walls. There are many TPT authors who have created high-quality resources for all occasions.
Sit in on conferences
Offering to sit in on conferences is helpful in two ways. First, it shows the teacher you support them and they don’t have to do this alone. Second, it can help build relationships with families. Relationship building will be highlighted later in this article. However, sitting in on conferences of your youngest students is imperative to relationship building. These families have the potential to be in your school for multiple years.
Limit teacher distractions:
Two things that can relieve teacher stress for conferences are to make the schedule and organize food and/or dinner.
The first thing to remember, teachers might be at school for over 12 hours on parent-teacher conference night. Teachers are BUSY. Knowing that snacks and a meal are taken care of allows them to focus on the conference. The first night, dinner is provided for teachers at no cost. On night number two, teachers order from a restaurant that has an app or online ordering. Since I have the best secretaries in the whole wide world, one of my secretaries will pick up every teachers’ order.
As far as the schedule, we create and share a google sheet with time slots and a dinner time. The secretary creates and shares a template with each teacher. This allows us to see the schedule when parents call the office. Parents can reschedule through the office. Scheduling dinner time for them reminds them to leave a portion of the evening to come down and grab something to eat. Again, if they have been at school for 9-10 hours they need to eat.
Promote your school:
Parent-teacher conferences are the perfect time to promote special events and/or projects going on at your school. We have a bond issue coming up in the spring. We display information and hand out flyers for this. Maybe your school has a fundraiser going on. You can set up displays and promote and/or sell for the fundraiser.
This is one of the first times parents have been in the building. As I am writing this blog we are hopefully getting close to the end of Covid. At this point, families have not been in the school building much. At any rate, being in the building is a great time to showcase and promote school spirit.
Build relationships:
As I have said, parent-teacher conferences can be the ultimate opportunity to build relationships. By all means, walk around the building and start conversations. Introduce yourself. Ask questions about their experience with your school. Certainly, you can gain honest feedback about your school to make it better. Rather than relying on surveys, no one takes, or angry social media posts, we can get authentic input for a better school for our kids.
Get work done:
Without a doubt, celebrate accomplishing everything mentioned above! However, you may not need the 3, 4, or 5 hours of scheduled conference time to complete everything on this list. With that in mind, you can get a few things checked off your to-do list. Teachers are busy with conferences and not necessarily interrupting you. At any rate, you could possibly get 30 min. to an hour of uninterrupted work done.
In the comments, how do you prepare for parent-teacher conferences? Inquiring principals want to know. The more detail the better. If you could share your one very best tip, what would it be?
