You could hear a pin drop in high school classrooms across Frederick County, Maryland. Rather than the buzz of chatter from parent-teacher conferences, there was a notable silence—caused by a string of unfilled appointments. In fact, across the district's 10 high schools, parents signed up for just 18 percent of available conference slots; and teachers spent, on average, two of the 10 instructional hours set aside to talk with parents.
The poor attendance nudged the school board to eliminate high school conferences altogether. Kathryn Groth, Frederick County Public Schools board member, says the district is instead promoting on-demand conferences and other parent engagement initiatives.
"At the high school level, this seemed to be a reasonable alternative to setting aside [instructional] time for conferences and then not having many parents participate," explains Groth.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, attendance for parent-teacher conferences falls dramatically through the grade levels—from 89 percent in K–2 to 57 percent in high school. At the same time, parents believe their involvement is essential to their child's academic success.
In a Civic Enterprises survey, parents of high school students said they want to participate, "But [they] need an access point—a way in—and many are not finding it in their child's school." More than half (52 percent) of high school parents "want a faculty advisor assigned to each student to monitor student performance and maintain contact with parents." They also want more flexibility in scheduling parent-teacher conferences.
Poor attendance could simply be "a reflection of people doing the same old thing," notes Elena Lopez, associate director of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP). "Maybe we should think about what [parent-teacher conferences] should look like rather than what they are."
Some schools are doing just that, shifting from traditional "sit-and-get" conferences toward innovative models that put a premium on data and goal setting. But how do they get parents to show?
Empty Hands, Open Minds
Allison Ricket, an English teacher at Athens High School, says teachers have to remove barriers to attendance. Located in a Southern Ohio college town, the school sees a noticeable economic divide between the working class and white-collar families that it serves. Most parents juggle multiple jobs.
"To pay a babysitter to watch your three younger siblings so a parent can attend a conference is not going to happen," Ricket says. And most schools can't foot the bill for childcare.
So Ricket invites parents to bring the whole family along and warmly greets younger siblings. She sets crayons and paper on a table in the back of the classroom and assures parents that it's OK if their kids are noisy.
"From my experience with these families, [it helps to] just acknowledge that I know it's a burden for them to drag their whole family out here."
"Teachers can do a lot to be accessible," she notes. For instance, try calling them "progress conferences" instead of "parent conferences" to acknowledge students raised in foster homes or by guardians. Provide accommodations for parents with disabilities and interpreters for families who need them (don't ask the student to interpret). And body language matters, too: Communicate accessibility by sitting side-by-side with families, not at your desk, and don't hold onto anything like a clipboard or pen. Empty hands suggest an open mind.
Most important, says Ricket, listen. Although she pulls each student's portfolios and grades ahead of time, as well as copies of classroom policies, "I don't start with anything," she explains. "Parents usually come in having an idea of what they want to talk about, so I like to be open and ready for whatever they need."
It can be overwhelming for teachers, she admits, but active listening and eye contact go a long way. "Parents are dealing with some really big issues," and they just want someone to empathize.
Breaking the Cycle
The most challenging hurdle to getting parents into meetings is public education's bad rap in some communities, asserts Ricket. "In these depressed areas where the economy has been hit the hardest, there is a particular animosity from parents and disillusioned students" that the American Dream has become a myth. The idea that "if I just go to school, I will get a good job, has broken down."
It can spark a vicious cycle. Families "turn around and blame the schools, and the schools get defensive, and then nobody shows up to parent-teacher conferences because it doesn't matter anyway."
"In communities where there is significant distrust between families and schools, we can have the most beautiful parent-teacher conferences with all the whistles and bells," says Flamboyan Foundation President Kristin Ehrgood, "but unless we invest the time in building the relationship first, we will see [low] attendance."
Research conducted by the Flamboyan Foundation, an organization that works with schools in Washington, D.C., to improve family engagement, showed a swelling distrust between parents and teachers in the nation's capital. Parents' own experiences of public schools tainted the view of their kids' education system. And teachers were equally frustrated, assuming that poor participation meant "parents must not care," says Ehrgood.
"Our response needs to be as big as the problem," she confirms. Flamboyan helps teachers build their capacity in three areas of family engagement: "relationship-building home visits, ongoing communication (e-mailing, texting, newsletters, phone calls), and academic partnering."
Through this approach, parent-teacher conferences have transformed into productive academic-sharing sessions. It's a clear departure from the "lovely speed dating sessions where you get to know one another and you rush off and the next person comes in."
A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action
In the 40 schools Flamboyan partners with, conferences are a mix of goal-setting meetings, student-led conferences, and Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT). Data is at the heart of APTTs, a model developed by Maria Paredes, former director of community education at Creighton School District in Arizona. Paredes, now at WestEd, noticed that for many of the district's families, "knowing what to do to support learning for their children at home was a mystery."
According to a survey from the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), only 7 percent of K–8 parents said they "find out about the knowledge and skills [their] child is expected to learn at (his/her) current grade level" from parent and teacher meetings, conferences, and the PTA.
Paredes developed APTTs to make parent-teacher conferences more actionable, especially in elementary schools. Under the model, teachers hold three 75-minute parent group meetings and one individual family session each year. During the group meetings, teachers break down whole-class academic performance data while parents follow along with individual folders showing their child's progress.
Parents learn about the most important grade-level learning concepts their child needs to master by the end of the year. For example, "In the 3rd grade, instead of giving parents dozens of standards, the teacher [emphasizes] that what's most important is reading fluency; reading comprehension; and mastery of addition, subtraction, and multiplication." The teacher explains and models each concept, and parents brainstorm together and share ideas for how they could support that work. Then the teacher provides parents with engaging games, learning activities, and strategies to use at home; and facilitates goal setting to monitor their children's progress.
More than 500 schools in 20 states are using these academic teams. In some D.C. schools, parent attendance has jumped from 15 to more than 70 percent, notes Ehrgood, because "parents view [APTTs] as a good use of their time."
Sealing the Road to Self-Efficacy
Even in APTTs, students have a role, says Paredes. In elementary school, they get a rundown of how the meetings work and write personal invitations to their parents. Middle and high school students participate in both the individual and team meetings by setting goals, learning how to communicate their hopes and dreams, and discussing college readiness skills alongside their parents. "Students are a tremendous asset to the conversation and strategies being shared," confirms Paredes.
Nick Lawrence, an 8th grade social studies teacher at East Bronx Academy for the Future, says student-led conferences can facilitate rich conversations with families. When he and his fellow 8th grade teachers implemented student-led conferences, they met weekly with their student advisories to prepare.
Because Lawrence developed strong relationships with the 10–12 students in his advisory—calling their families almost weekly—nearly 100 percent of their parents showed up to conferences. "They were more willing to come because [we] had been talking all year."
Plus, "Parents liked the model because the conversation was more focused and goal-oriented," Lawrence adds. "Telling a parent what's going on in the classroom [is much less effective] than a student saying 'here is what's going on, here is my progress, and here is what I need to work on.' It leads to much more self-efficacy."
Unlike Frederick Public Schools, which eliminated high school conferences, New York City Public Schools doubled its number of conferences from two to four each year. Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña also allocated an entire period every Tuesday for teachers to focus on parent outreach. Historically, "we haven't done a good job letting parents know we're here to help them," Fariña told WNYC radio in 2014.
With the new schedule, something had to give. The 8th grade team at East Bronx lost its weekly advisory, which meant teachers had to abandon student-led conferences.
Now, they're back to square one: Conversations with parents tend to be "shorter and more superficial because they don't know me as well," says Lawrence.
One Point on the Continuum
Harvard Family Research Project is homing in on three strands of work to help educators strengthen their interactions with families, says researcher Margaret Caspe. The first strand aims to build empathy so educators can understand the family's perspective. "What makes it hard for them to come to a school and have a conversation with a teacher? What are they hearing when they go to these meetings? What do the [parent-teacher conferences] feel like? Are they rushed?"
The second strand concentrates on sharing data effectively—breaking it down into digestible pieces and helping parents "take action based on the information received." APTTs and similar efforts echo that data is "no good if [parents] can't do anything with it."
The third strand focuses on improving the systems and infrastructure that support rich discussions between schools and families, says Caspe. "That starts with leadership in the school, [from] having good professional development systems, to good data systems, to sound teaching and curriculum, to family engagement programming."
When these areas work in concert, parent-teacher conferences leverage ongoing communication. They're just "one point in a continuum of conversations between parents and teachers," says Lopez.
Setting the Table
Even for those committed to giving conferences a facelift, the pace of progress can be slow. Out of 150 students in Ricket's English classes, 20 parents might show up to a conference each semester. But the parents who do show remain in close—and meaningful—contact with the teacher throughout the year.
Ricket plans to keep trying new strategies: "We can't say, 'Oh, this isn't working' and not do anything about it. We have to invite parents to the table."