Parent-School Relationships: Presume Baggage… and Carry On! – Part 3
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we explored two guiding principles for parent-school relationships: presume baggage and presume carry on. We also looked at the phrases that can quietly undermine them.
Here in Part 3, we’ll discuss how the absence of any training on these conversations in the first place is the black hole of parent-teacher partnership.
Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail
Often, there is zero coursework in teacher education programs on how to conduct parent-teacher conversations. There are seldom school-based seminars for educators or parents on how to conduct parent-teacher conversations.
And yet, we expect these conversations to go well and make it a school priority to schedule multiple conferences annually.
Parent-teacher conversations are the baseline for parent-school relationships. We should celebrate how many good relationships there are, despite having no training or modeling in this core activity. It’s like a student acing an exam despite neither studying nor doing the homework.
Sometimes educators are reprimanded for something inappropriate they said in a parent-teacher conference. Sometimes parents do things in parent-teacher conferences that sour their relationship with the school. However, there’s no model, no training, no widely shared examples on what these conversations should be like.
A Better Way
Our suggestion is to create whole-community models and/or seminars on what good parent-teacher conferences look like, including what not to do.
This can be fun! Scripts can be created. Students can role-play as teachers or parents. Teachers can role-play as parents or students. Parents can role-play as students or teachers. When all parties understand what things look like from a different seat, understanding and confidence grow for everyone.
Teams like Remfrey Educational Consulting can also be valuable. If you would like help constructing a community training on effective parent-teacher conferences, please reach out to us, and we will be happy to design something tailored to your school’s context.
The good news is that this is fixable. When schools create space for the whole community to learn together (not just students, but parents and educators too), everyone benefits. In Part 4, we'll look at the other side of the equation: what parents typically don't know about the full reality of an educator's day, and why that gap matters just as much.
