Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ???

conferences are coming up and they have the student present their "portfolio" to the parent for 15 minutes (without the parent), and then after that the teacher comes over for 15 min. and goes through test scores and things. I'm not sure how much the student presents at that time the teacher is there, or how much it is really "student led" but will update how it goes. I remember DS's portfolio last spring was a joke, with pages upside down and out of order, and we just sat there, with me looking at it, horrified. He did not "present" anything, but I think he was supposed to.

It's sounds like Kelly the school or the district you are in is quite smaller than ours. In ours there are 22 grade schools and 5 junior highs. My daughter has been in the district 9 years and I have never gone to a meeting. The only ones I have been to have been on curriculum nights where the PTA knows they will have an audience. Meetings are held 50% during the day and 50% at night. 99% of people who belong to the PTA never go to the meetings. I have been to the student led meetings. There were two other conferences going on while the teacher (who's not my daughter's teacher this year) of my daughter walks around and observes. the info including MAP goals and MAP targets is info parents already know and quite frankly useless for kids in the 99 percentile. I'm guessing others on this thread are on the same boat. My memory is more hazy with the grade school days but I believe only the principal was at the meetings. I also would add and Frannie can back me up is the schools in the district are for the most part very good schools.

I can one up you...we can't even form PTAs due to lack of interest, lack of cultural understanding what it is, lack of the five die hard volunteers at the school willing to take on one more thing...just don't have one.

Yes, our district must be much smaller. We have 5 elementary schools, a 5th grade house, a 6th grade house, a middle school and a high school. We have approximately 2,000 kids in the high school. I cannot even begin to imagine a district as big as yours. It is unfortunate that quality is lost to quantity and that it is so large that parents feel they have no avenue for change.

I would also like to add that my daughter is in the 99th percentile of everything MAP for her grade, but the student led conference is still useful. My daughter may be smart, however, she is in an accelerated classroom with all of her peers, so she isn't a shining star... the bar is set much higher as the classroom needs demand. She is also not the most organized person in the world, and she is human so she does mess up sometimes on her work or tests. So, the process of goal setting, evaluation, explanation and accountability has been nothing but a positive experience for her. Don't assume that just because peoples kids are at the 99th percentile they have nothing to gain from an opportunity to experience leadership; even if it is leadership over their own education.

If this comes out offensive it's not really intended but in our case the quantity may be worth more than the quality in the end. Our junior high offers Grometry snd the high school district offers 5 semesters of calculus. some kids would have that done before senior year. My daughters MAP is 99 percentile for someone two years ahead of her grade While the goal setting, organizational skills, accountability benefits many I'm not sure it's needed by many others.

I think in our district (same as nicolesdad), it really depends on the school. When we first started student led conferences, they weren't student led at all. As the years have progressed, I am pleased with how the conferences unfold.

For fall conferences, they are scheduled with no other students/parents in the room. I prefer fall to the winter when others are present especially for ds as he needs more time with the teacher to discuss his progress and we all make mutual goals to ensure he shows a years growth.

My kids have presented their portfolios, MAP scores and goals, behavior charts that they grade themselves on (teachers interject with where they feel the kids are). We discuss challenges. The kids prepare questions at home that they can ask the teacher when no one else is around.

Just my 2 cents...

Your post doesn't offend me. Just for transparency sake, my daughter also maps out at the 99th percentile two years ahead. So do many of the kids in her classroom. FWIW, she is on track to complete her high school math by 10th grade, after that she will be allowed to take college level math classes for her remaining two years and earn college credit for them. Many kids in the district currently do so and many have even graduated high school with enough college credit for an Associates Degree. I understand your environment and yes, if I had to pick or choose a student led conference over gifted opportunities, I would pick gifted opportunities for sure. But I think its unfortunate that you have to sacrifice any type of quality at all. It is evident that you don't see the value of the student led conferences though, so I doubt the fact that I do value them will change your opinion at all. We both draw from our own experiences and how we choose to process them.

student led conferences started in second grade. In our case my daughter went to Magnet program in third grade and things Kelly suggested that happened in the student led conferences were already known and thus the conferences IMO were not really necessary. I'm sure things have improved as Frannie suggested. I still think those conferences are better suited for grade school kids. Also between losing three days off school for conferences, MAP testing, and PARCC testing to me some of that could be better spent in actual teaching. In regards to the college credits I'm not that knowledgeable but I believe in ours they can Gary U of I credit.

Both our current and old school have had student-led conferences, but what that actually means seems to depend on the teacher. I really dislike them because I would rather use my 15 minutes to talk to the teacher about how things are ACTUALLY going, not just how my child thinks they're doing. The goals my child set this year are also super-fuzzy, like "Have a great attitude". Ugh. The one time we had goals she really remembered and worked for, it was concrete stuff, like, "Get to level N in the division minute-math sets by June 1"--easily defined, tracked, and measured.

Really, in the best of all worlds, it would be nice to have 10 minutes of student-led stuff, AND 15 minutes to talk face to face to the teacher. But I imagine that's hard to squeeze in when there are 27 other kids in the class to conference with, too.