Parent Teacher Conferences

Monday was parent-teacher conferences for me. They didn't start until noon, so I had plenty of time to do horse chores (95 %solo, because Carrie's gut was acting up).

I talked to 12 parents like this.

Most went really well. There were three kids who needed wake-up calls and are probably regretting their parents talked to met. 

Yet those kids should be thankful their parents scheduled a conference and they have someone on them to keep them accountable. There are kids who have failed to log in at all. The kids scrambling have plenty of time to get things on track to get credit.

It wasn't the hardest day, but it was weird how drawn out everything was. Conferences were scheduled in 10 minute intervals from 12 - 7 PM. A chunk of mine ran over (including one where the woman was at work, had trouble with the audio, and took us outside while trying to fix it) and then a 10-20 minute window before the next didn't afford a lot of time. I ran an open office hours for over an hour, but only 1 kid showed up to talk and he didn't have any missing work!

I liked having a break in the routine. I'm looking even more forward to having a full day off tomorrow.

Shane's parent teacher conference was the week before. His teacher has really loved having him in class. Shane is a personality. He's positive, he talks, he reacts, and injects life into the class. One day he was late logging on and she said she felt the difference. "Where's Shane!? We need him!"

His issues are the opposite of the high school. I speak to a room of muted microphones and cameras. Shane's teacher has to turn his camera off when she can see the food stuck between his teeth or he's using it to look up his nose! I laughed out loud when she talked about how Shane likes to share his 'research' with the class. He'll talk about storms or ants...and sometimes it's clear he's reading something off a page! Shane sure loves to talk!

It was nice to hear all those things. He's doing well academically and she mentioned she needs to find more ways to challenge him. He has trouble focusing and listening at times, but she mentioned he accepts redirection well and never consciously disrespects her.