But the reality is...
No one's ever handed us an "engagement" manual. We don't always know how to have an effective parent conference, advocate for our children or simply make sure we're supporting our kids' education the best way possible.
So when it comes to parent engagement in schools, many of us:
Act out of fear
We cross our fingers, hope everything will work itself out and do nothing rather than risk doing something wrong.
React in frustration
We wait until things are going horribly wrong, and then we lose it (and then worry that our kids will be treated poorly because of our outburst).
Run to avoid failure.
When it seems like the situation is doomed, we yank our kids out of the school and tell everyone who'll listen how terrible the teachers are.
And in every one of these situations, our kids lose.
We know you want what's best for your child. We believe you know how important it is to develop a relationship with your child's teachers. We also know none if that is easy, and we want to help. That's why we've created
The Essential partnership
A 5-day email course to help you develop a strong, positive partnership with your child's teachers so your son or daughter gets the education they deserve.
Additional Resources:
The Essential Partnership
How to Work With Your Child’s Teacher to Ensure Success
Beyond the Number Grades: Mid-Year Status Report
Use The Beyond The Number Grades: Mid-Year Status Report, a parent/teacher conference template, to guide the conversation with your child's teacher and walk away knowing exactly how your child is progressing in school. This tool includes:
the email for you to send to your child's teacher and
the reflection template
Beyond the Number Grades: End of Year Status Report
The End of the Year Reflection provides your child’s teacher the opportunity to reflect on your child’s academic and developmental/social strengths and areas of improvement in a narrative form. The completed End of Year Reflection can also be shared with the next teacher as a way to introduce your child and his/her most recent academic history.
To help you get the most out of this tool, we've included
the email for you to send to your child's teacher at the end of April for a mid-May conference
the reflection template, and
a sample conference script
