Smartatmath Sam's video: Successful Parent Teacher Conferences

Most schools are nearing the end of their first grading period and traditionally this is when parent conferences are usually planned. Often this conferences take the shape of telling the parents all the “wrong” things their child is doing to earn a bad grade – or it is a time for the parents of the high performing students to come to school to hear how great their child is or is doing. All too often the successful students’ families are more likely to attend. Which speaks to the success of those students – family involvement and engagement is a strong determinant of student success. The low performing students have a lower “turn out” for conferences, open house, etc... There are a myriad of reasons for this lack of involvement; intimidation with the system, do not speak English, exhausted due to the strain of poverty, lack of time, cultural barriers, and not wanting to hear another negative thing about their child – I do not believe they are absent due to a lack of caring for their child nor do I believe they do not care about their child’s success. These parents need to feel welcome and empowered. At our school we started a tradition of “goal setting” meetings at the beginning of the school year. This was a school-wide effort at our school. This may not be possible at your school if the leadership does not endorse this policy, but as a teacher you can still have some of the same elements in your parent/teacher meetings. In fact this goal setting idea grew out of ideas from two of my teachers (I was a principal) one teacher always (on his own time) met with families at the beginning of the year to set expectations and to have a positive “first” interaction, another teacher came up with the goal setting at conferences (she was tired of the same old, same old negative interactions, that really did not affect change) – I combined these ideas and expanded upon them, this video will explain how to have this positive, proactive approach to improve student achievement by facilitating a positive mindset. These tips are based on twenty years of experience as a teacher and principal, the majority of my experience was with students of color, poverty, and English language learners (ELL). It is so important to provide a welcoming atmosphere for families at school. The author/ creator of this video has been influenced by other experts in the field; Harry Wong , Carol Dweck, Envoy Training, Ruby Paine and Robert Marzano all of which have great ideas to help teachers provide effective and engaging instruction with the help of parents. Primary grades teachers, middle school teachers and high school teachers will find valuable information in these videos and the accompanying web page. SBAC test scores and learning in general will improve with a positive mindset in the classroom and school in general; creating a school to home connection that benefits students. A partnership between home and school can only help improve student achievement plus it makes the school experience more positive and happy. This video emphasizes the "how to"; "nuts and bolts" of positive starts and positive plans for all students with the help of parents. This video will teach strategies to provide opportunities for student, parent and teacher success. Learning cannot happen if students do not understand the expectations and do not have a positive attitude and mindset. Student success is more likely with parents as part of the instructional team