Parent Teacher Conferences provide a great opportunity for families to connect with their student’s teachers on a personal level. Last year, Sparta High School pivoted from an in-person bullpen model that had families waiting in lines for indeterminate amounts of time to a scheduled virtual model for parent teacher conferences.
Before conferences the building secretary used ptcfast.com to set up a schedule for family members to select an appointment time for conferences. Using ptcfast, she set it up so that appointments were available in 10 minute blocks on both nights of conferences from 5:00pm to 7:30pm. PTCfast can be set up to send out reminders, up to the day of conferences, to remind parents and guardians about their appointment slots based upon the information they submit.
We had teachers set up a Google Meet using the form below to create a hyperlink on their name. Families then logged into the Google Meet at their assigned time and the teacher let them into the Google Meet to prevent any cross-conferencing. For families that were unable to get a reservation, teachers communicated individually with the family and arranged an appropriate time to meet via Google Meet, phone, or email.
In the past, feedback after conferences could be critical about long wait times for specific teachers. Last year, though, parents and guardians were raving that they were able to meet with all 6 of their student’s teachers from the comfort of the location of their choosing! Families who previously were unable to make the commute were now able to log into a meeting at a specific time and have a detailed conversation about their student’s success and growth opportunities, whether they were at work, home with their other children, or just decompressing after a long day. Also, by having one source for the meeting links, parents and guardians were not searching their email account for 6 different emails from 6 different teachers with 6 different links. Instead, families had one resource with all of the needed information in order to get access to their student’s teachers.
With back up plans in place for families without internet access, and those who cannot get an appointment slot, we will be continuing with virtual conferences this year to help to continue to connect parents and guardians with their student’s teachers in an efficient and timely manner!
Written by Aaron Romoslawski, Assistant Principal at Sparta High School