What to Expect at Your Parent-Teacher Conference

Lately we have been getting questions from parents regarding whether or not to attend an upcoming parent-teacher conference and what to ask or expect if they do attend.  We have put together a list of helpful tips to help you prepare for a parent-teacher conference (with a math focus of course!), and a free parent-teacher conference checklist you can download and bring along to your conference to help you remember everything you want to ask your child's teacher. 

But first, to attend or not to attend? Programs like ReMind and Class Dojo make communicating with your student’s teacher easy and convenient.  Many teachers also implement other ways of keeping parents informed through websites and newsletters and you may find yourself in a whirlwind of busy life obligations and asking, What’s the point? And I get it. If your student is excelling in math and you feel like you have a good line of communication established with their teacher, it's not the end of the world if you are not able to attend.  Just make sure you send a message letting them know and ask that they send home any important information that will be covered or handed out during the conference.

On the other hand, if you are able to attend your conference you most definitely should. Your child’s education is a team effort, and you are a huge part of that team!  While we live in an era of communicating more through technology than in person, communicating face to face not only always yields better, more meaningful results, but also will set you up for successful communication throughout the school year.

Preparing:

• Before the conference, look at your student’s grades in math that have been recorded so far this school year in whatever program your school uses to record and report that information (Infinite Campus, ALMA, etc.). Take note of any lower grades that you would like to ask about.
• Think of any skills or concepts that have been a source of frustration for your student and ask for suggestions for extra practice problems at home and maybe a quick demonstration of how it is taught in the classroom so that you can use the same strategies at home when helping your student review. 
• Ask what new, challenging skills will be taught in the next quarter.  If you want to give your student a HUGE confidence boost, preview some of these skills with them to help them be prepared.  You know that feeling when you are sitting in a class of any sort and realize that you already know what the teacher is talking about when everyone else is clueless.  Previewing is POWERFUL! Check out our article on previewing and reviewing common skills by grade level for inspiration. 

Understanding What is Given to You:

• STAR Math Assessment Results: Many school systems use the STAR Math assessment to track and monitor student progress throughout the school year.  The test assesses a student’s achievement level in math through a series of 34 questions that can either increase or decrease in difficulty based on the student’s responses. The STAR Math test administration manual states that, “By continually adjusting the difficulty of an item to what the student has shown they can or cannot do, the assessment is tailored to accurately measure each student’s level of achievement.”
• Grade Level Equivalent Score (GE): This score represents the grade level at which a student performed on the assessment in comparison to other students nationally.  The first number represents a grade level and the second number represents a month of the school year.  For example, a GE score of 5.4 can be interpreted as the student scored as well as a typical 5th grade student after the 4th month of the school year. This is the most common score discussed from the STAR Math Assessment, but you can find more information on interpreting the STAR Assessment scores here https://www.renaissance.com/star-scores/ 
• Grade Level Math Benchmark Assessments: These assessments typically assess a student’s knowledge of all of the grade-level objectives that will be covered throughout the entire school year.  With that being said, it is normal and expected for scores to be low at the beginning of the school year since students have only been taught a small amount of the curriculum and high at the end of the school year after they have progressed through all of the objectives in math for their grade level.  Your teacher should be able to tell you what your student should be scoring at this point in the school year.  Be sure to ask and take note of any problems on this assessment that have already been covered this year that your student may have worked incorrectly so that you can help them revisit those skills.

Download Your Checklist Now

Remember that these conferences are usually scheduled for a short 15-20 minute time period so the more prepared you are, the more you will get out of it (and your student’s teacher will be so grateful!).  Arrive a little early and if you run out of time you can always schedule a meeting to talk to the teacher more in depth if you need to!

You've got this!!

We have been working hard to make video resources available on hot topic skills for each grade level in an effort to provide help with homework when needed and also to have a convenient resource to use when reviewing those skills your student may need to go back and revisit and also previewing skills they will see later in the school year. You can find them on the Math Skills Videos page of our website.