Next week, we have parent-teacher conferences at school. It’s the end of the quarter, so tensions are high with early deadlines for college applications looming. The stress is palpable. One student let out a sob by my office door because of a missed writing conference for a personal statement.
I could only reschedule it the next week. “But the Nov. 1 deadline is so soon!” I gently reminded the student weeks remained to polish the statement that was nearly done. Into October’s stress cauldron, schools add parent-teacher conferences. High schools should stop this practice.
The parent-teacher conference in early grades makes sense developmentally. But in high school, students should be learning independence. Most high school students can drive, and many of our seniors can vote. High school students soon will interact with college professors or bosses. That students often fail to make great decisions on their way to independence in high school is to be expected. Grades shared with parents reflect progress or lack thereof, and parents can email a concern day or night. But they shouldn’t.
A parent with a true concern can schedule a parent-teacher conference at any time. Yet we have parent-teacher gauntlets where the following happens: Teachers must schedule five hours of virtual, 10-minute conference slots after school and on Tuesday; faculty will stay in the building meeting parents in person until 7:30 p.m. after teaching a full day. The next day, we “teach” like punch-drunk sailors who have been thrown overboard. Recovery happens Friday when we stay home. We also had a grading day in which students stayed home, and we caught up on grades — even though we’re told that parent-teacher conferences aren’t about grades. That’s a hilarious thought for anyone who has endured hundreds of these meetings in which parents want to discuss one thing.
Teachers are well acquainted with the stressors of the job. We know the fetal position after a hard day with pillow pulled over our head, the medications, the endless exhaustion that comes from trying to do what may be the most important work in our society: Help young people not give in to the cognitive surrender that winks at them on their digital devices at school. But the parent-teacher conference week in a high school must top the list of inhumane administrative imperatives. It exhausts an exhausted faculty, and soon after that week, faculty members will call in sick. Immune systems are shot.
Parent-teacher conferences are about public relations. Per-pupil expenditure and taxes are high, so let the taxpayer get face time with these teachers, who are presentable, articulate and prove that buying a home in the school’s community was a wise investment.
Plus, if parents conclude that teachers aren’t up to snuff, they can bring that to bear. “Do you know I’ve published six books?” one parent said to my officemate when she tried to justify a grade on an essay that Mr. Six Books couldn’t countenance. In a suburb of Ohio where I was teaching honors freshman English, parents lined the hallway to meet the teacher who in the first quarter wasn’t giving A’s. One parent said, “Do you know with such a low grade for my son, you’re making it impossible for him to get into Johns Hopkins Medical School?” Another said, “Don’t you know the average IQ of students in your class is 130?”
Parent-teacher conferences devolve quickly into a power play that hinders learning.
If high school teachers find parent-teacher conferences a slog, why don’t teachers get together and say, “No, we shouldn’t do this”? Work in a public school, and you’ll learn teachers are the last people making decisions that affect their own well-being and the learning of students.
For parents reading this, if your kid has a grade of A or B, don’t schedule a meeting. Teachers call this the “victory lap conference.” If you’re concerned about your kid’s learning, ask your child what can be done. If they are at a loss, contact the teacher. Parents follow what other parents do, so when school districts make it seem like parent-teacher conferences are a must, parents fill every slot. Teachers wobble to school the next day, knowing full well the source of a student’s little sob at their door and the steps to be taken. “If the fool would persist in his folly,” a poet wrote, “he would become wise.”
That’s a clever epigraph for a student’s personal statement, but after a week of parent-teacher conferences, it feels more like a teacher’s epitaph.
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