Helpful and Unhelpful Aspects of Having Conferences

Teachers and students in the Salem Keizer district have conferences in the fall and spring each school year, creating an individual evaluation for each student’s parents to discern their child’s academic strengths, as well as what aspects they may need aide in. The question has arisen from parents of whether or not the meetings are beneficial to their children, or if other actions should be taken to enable and facilitate the success of students.
“I think it’s good because you can talk to teachers even if you can’t make it to their office hours, it’s good, it’s helpful,” Alyssa Thompson ‘19 said.
Although conferences advise students on what they need to improve on, they may also cause an apprehensive home environment for some when parents are involved.
“It makes me nervous always even if I have good grades. It’s uncomfortable, my parents are nit-picky,” Thompson said.
Another difficulty students encounter with the seasonal meetings is the importance of it to those who have good grades.
“It’s more useful if your grades aren’t the greatest because back in middle school when I got straight A’s all the time, then conferences weren’t that useful because you already know you’re doing great,” Lemon Marin ‘18 said.
The relevance of conferences may depend specifically on each individual’s grades and work ethic. Using the input of teachers can either benefit or make no difference to students, therefore the knowledge of a student’s particular placement in the grade point average [GPA] scale can make it easier to give students the materials they need to succeed