Parent-Teacher Conferences

Wow! Has time flown.  Next week I start my Parent-Teacher conferences.  I can hardly believe that we are at that place.  I am not sure how class sizes are at your school, but where I teach, class sizes are bursting at the seams.  I have 37 Big Kid Monsters in my class and my site partners are about the same.  This is hands-down the largest class I've had yet - and new kids enroll on campus each week.  I expect the number of monsters will only increase throughout the year.

I share this now, not as I am complaining (because I adore all of my monsters), but because at this time of year the management logistics can become problematic.  We have early release for the week, which essentially means the students get out 1 hour earlier.  In the time our district has allowed for Parent-Teacher conferences, I calculated that if I meet about each student, I can schedule time for about 10 minutes per family.  Now, I don't know about you, but I find that 10 minutes allows for a very superficial conversation about a student's overall progress.  It does little to create meaning for those academically and behaviorally needy Big Kid Monsters.

So, I thought about this situation long and hard and I came to a difficult conclusion.  I weighed meaning over volume and concluded that I will schedule 20 minute blocks of time and request meetings on only the 25 most needy students.  My feeling was that the remaining 10+ kids who are nearest proficient and do not pose severe behavior difficulties can either bypass meeting me or will have the option to meet after the Parent-Teacher conference week.  So, this year I sent home 2 letters: 1) requesting a meeting, and 2) requesting no meeting with attached progress report.

I think this was an excellent solution to managing class sizes and still communicating with parents.  I've already receive positive feed back from parents and staff who are asking for copies of my letters to do the same.  Time will tell next week if this strategy was fully successful, but I have faith that it will work!

In the meantime, as always, have Fun and Teach with your whole heart.  Those Big Kids Monsters need it - even if they out number you 37 to 1!

Ramblings About RTI

Up until last year, my children had always attended school in the same district where I worked.  I didn’t realize until we moved and my children started attending school in a new district how lucky I was to have personal relationships with all of their teachers.  I worked at the same school with many of the wonderful professionals who taught my children.  I always acknowledged that my children we challenging to teach.  So much so that I wouldn’t have wanted them in my own class because I worried about my own ability to educate them when I couldn’t even get them to do homework. (I say that with a smile because being a parent is far harder than being a teacher any day of the week.

As I said, last year we moved.  At which time I went from colleague to being an ordinary parent who walked in off the street.  I found it shocking how differently my children were treated at the new school compared to their previous.  To cut to the chase, I spent a great deal of time advocating for my kiddos educational rights last year.  And because there was such as huge disconnect between what I was asking the school to do for my children and what they were willing to do, I realized that if I was going to get this school to see things from my perspective as mom, then I would need to do more than say “at their previous school the teacher___” or “at my school we ___”. 

Being the person that I am, I started reaching out to people who knew me well and asked for advice.  What I came to discover very early on in my journey was that I needed to have a deep and profound understanding of a facet of 2 areas within education that I had avoided knowing for years – 1) The Special Education System & 2) The Education and IDEA laws.  In the past, these two areas of education belonged to the special education/resource teacher and the principal.  In my mind, it wasn’t my responsibility to understand any of it.  It was a foreign and strange world best left for the experts.  My role as the teacher was to “refer” to SST if I thought the kid might be eligible for testing and that was where my responsibility ended.  I am embarrassed to say now that I do not recall ever reading any student’s IEP before and I’ve had many of them in my class over the years.

To cut to the chase in, as the veil was lifted from my eyes as a parent about these two areas of my profession, I became not only a better mom and advocate for my children, but also a far better educator.  During the course of the year I slowly unraveled these mysteries.  I consider myself a very smart woman, and I knew that if I hadn’t understood some simple concepts prior to beginning my journey, then it was likely that most everyone else was like me.  I knew that the new school didn’t get it either, because if they had, we wouldn’t have been in this position in the first place.

Because of my unique perspective (teacher/parent) I have offered to provide trainings to the staff on RTI/PBiS and IDEA at my own school with the hopes of starting to change the system from within.  And I must say: it’s working.  The challenge is to push this enlightenment to the next level, and help the rest of my district especially the upper crust (you know who I mean), begin to see what changes need to happen within our district in these areas so that other families do not experience what I have over the last year.  The question I ask is:  How does one teacher make this happen?  The Answer:  Be like the parent who won’t stop advocating for your child until your voice is heard. 

As I walk my journey of advocacy for change as a teacher and a parent, I will share my followers my experience, my advice (if needed), and many of my materials to help you make the changes you desire too.  And as always, I will do my best for you to make it fun.