Listen to Renée read this article aloud.

We’re off and running with a new school year, and the excitement—the optimism—among educators and students are palpable. Foundational to a Carroll education is collaboration with families, and that gets started right away with the first parent-teacher conference of the school year.

What I’ve learned working with parents and caregivers is that they come to conferences with a mix of emotions. And they’re looking to schools and educators to deliver on three key fronts:

• to know and appreciate their child, 
• to understand how their child learns, and
• to have a plan for their child.

At Carroll, our approach is purposeful and straightforward, and leads to some pretty impactful conferences and, in turn, student outcomes.

Our dialogue during conferences is about what students can do and what they are working towards. Absent from our conferences is discussion of what our students can’t do.

Here’s a peek at our approach.

Purposeful Design

Our September conferences are the first of four—yes, four—that occur over the course of the school year. Among public and other independent schools, we offer twice as many opportunities for conferencing. Reallocating six days of classroom instruction to conferences is an intentional choice, because we recognize the invaluable role they play in the growth of each student. Here’s the sequence across the school year:

September 

• Parents/caregivers meet with homeroom teachers/advisors.
• We learn all we can from new and returning families alike about their children—their strengths, areas where they have made progress, and areas where they want to grow.
• Together with parents, we set goals for the year.

November & March

• Parents/caregivers meet with student's teaching team.
• Drawing on data—classroom measures, academic assessments, and recent neuropsych reports—we’re able to share with parents their student’s current performance and progress across all domains: academic, social, emotional, and behavioral.
• We also learn from parents how their child is responding to their academic plan and to any instructional adjustments that may have been implemented earlier in the school year.

June

• Parents/caregivers meet with homeroom teachers/advisors with input from student's teaching team.
• Year-end review and goal-setting for the next school year.
• All middle schoolers and graduating upper school students participate in this final conference, helping them to practice their self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-advocacy skills.  

Partnership with Parents and Caregivers

Our conferences take a deeply collaborative approach. Educating students with dyslexia is our expertise, and we’re eager to help families make sense of the neuroscience and data to better understand how their child learns. Families are the ultimate experts of their kids and we rely on their observations and feedback. When we learn directly from parents about their child, and when we come together to better understand our students and trust in one another’s expertise, we optimize their progress. We also recognize that every parent, every family, is at a different place in their dyslexia journey; we meet them where they are.

An Academic Plan

Families don’t leave Carroll conferences wondering, “What’s next?” In addition to establishing goals, every conference defines goals moving forward and a plan for how to achieve them, whether that means staying the course or making adjustments. Integrating what we learn about each and every student from their families is critical to the design of that plan.

So, yes, when September’s installment of conferences got underway earlier this month, I felt inspired and energized by all that’s to come for our students this school year. At Carroll, parent-teacher conferences are just one of the many ways that our students and families experience transformation and belonging.