Parent Outreach

During my internship, I have had the opportunity to speak to both parents and other faculty members about student behavior and progress. My experiences have been positive so far, but I attribute that to being a student teacher and not a full faculty member. As a student teacher, I want to make sure I don’t overstep my responsibilities so anytime I have any concerns about a student, I correspond with my mentor to talk about next steps in order to improve the situation. My school placement prides itself in providing a college preparatory program so its standards are higher. Since I teach freshmen biology, many students struggled with the transition from middle school to high school in the fall, and some struggled a lot more than others. My students who struggled more took longer to adapt to the higher standards. For this post, I will talk about a specific experience that went from bad to good.

The first quarter allowed me to get to know my students both academically and personally, and it was during that time I was able to recognize students who needed an extra push or extra help to meet the standard. One student, in particular, gave up because she thought there was no point since she was “not good” in science. I saw past that façade and her parent is a faculty member so I was able to talk to her parent to get more background information on her as well as provide her parent with my observations thus far. I came to find out that my student was not used to the amount of homework or the standard at which we would accept homework. Retakes or late work go against the policy and she was just not accustomed to that. Her attitude and work ethic were not up to par. By speaking to her parent, we were able to develop a plan that I would implement in the classroom and the parent would implement at home. In the classroom, I would provide positive reinforcement and provide more 1-on-1 time to clarify concepts. At home, her parent would continue to remind her of the work that was due. With time, not only were her grades improving, but so was her overall attitude of school and she was able to develop good habits and break out of her bad habits.

The experience of reaching out to a parent over concerns of their child’s academic performance improved the situation by a tenfold. I think as a student teacher it can be intimidating to speak to parents about their child’s behavior and/or performance, but my experiences have reminded me that it’s important to keep the dialogue open because it can take a team to make a difference. Even if I had a “do over” I don’t think I would change my actions thus far. While a student’s bad behavior or poor test performance warrants parent outreach, I believe it’s equally important to reach out to parents when good things happen.