Planning for Parent/Teacher Conferences

As the school year continues to roll on at an increasing pace, it is time to start thinking about one of the most important times of year in the classroom. In many cases we’ve run straight through the first quarter and are bearing down on the end of the first semester. Many schools are beginning to think about planning for parent/teacher conferences. So what are the best tools we can provide parents with for these meetings? There are a couple of reports and documents that teachers can bring with them to help illustrate to the parents or guardians where the student is and what he or she can work on. 

Student Assessment History – The Assessment History Report is a useful tool to summarize the student’s full performance. The report can be run with benchmark, formative, and external test data available. The teachers can give the parents a nice snapshot of their student’s performance so far in the school year.

Individual Development Profile – This is another report that interested parents might find useful. This report is actually linked on the Student Assessment History Report, and it breaks down an individual student’s performance on each standard tested on the most recent assessment.

Student Multi-Test – As you may or may not be aware, a very informative report in Galileo is the Aggregate Multi-Test Report. This is report provides projections for student performance and places scores on a common scale, complete with Risk Analysis and a handy graph. What you may not be aware of is the fact that there is the exact same report that can be run on a specific student.

Psychometrics Quick Reference Guide – Now that the parents have seen the Student Assessment History and the Student Multi-Test reports, they may have a decent understanding of where their student stands, but they also might like some more information on how these developmental level scores are created and what they mean. The psychometrics quick reference guide – available within the Professional Development Forum within Galileo – will help to explain how these scores are generated.

Parent Quick Reference Guide – There are also many documents that can help a parent feel more involved in their student’s education, one such document is the parent-student center quick reference guide – available within the Professional Development Forum within Galileo – that walks the parent or guardian through the K-12 Student-Parent Center.  For districts that choose to share class information, teacher information, notes, and more within the K-12 Student-Parent Center, this would serve as a great tool for outlining what type of information can be found there.

Ensuring that the teachers have the most important information at the ready and the ability to help relay that to the parents will help to get the parents more involved in their student’s education and open the lines for communication.

-Christopher Domschke
Field Services Coordinator