For Upper School English instructor Katherine Snow, what is extraordinary about the more than 5,000 individual parent/guardian-teacher conferences that occur each school year at Colorado Academy is not how many of them are held—though that is remarkable enough.
It is a recognition, Snow argues, that repeats itself countless times on conference days in the fall and spring: “Every single one of these parents is here because of the care they invest in honoring their children; every one has spent the last 5 or 10 or 18 years cultivating incredible relationships with their kids that we get the privilege of witnessing a few times a year.”
Those conference moments can be emotional, Snow acknowledges—for teachers just as much as for the families. There’s pride and joy at the astonishing growth that happens over the course of a school year; there’s concern and a sense of urgency about the inevitable challenges that crop up; and, yes, there is even love.
As Middle School English instructor Olivia Wall explains, “I think I’ve become much more comfortable telling students and their family members directly, ‘I want you to know how excited I am to have you in my classroom.’ I love when I get to share with parents a piece of writing they’ve never seen, for example, and it’s so special for them, because perhaps their student wrote it about a place the whole family visited together. It’s such a lovely experience to have as a teacher.”
Second Grade instructor Karli Warrender describes feeling something similar when she is able to send families home with a piece of student work to celebrate. “My kids are always nervous in the days before conferences,” she recounts, “but then their parents walk out of our conversation saying, ‘My gosh—you did this!?’ And the look of happiness and pride on the child’s face is just amazing.”
Building a whole house
Still, for all there is to celebrate, there’s no denying that for most teachers these twice-yearly conferences with families are like balancing on a high wire.
The feeling of vulnerability many parents bring with them to any discussion about their child cannot be overstated, says Middle School English teacher and CA parent and alumnus Matt Olmstead ’95. “As soon as I became a parent, I think I understood far more clearly what it’s like to be on the other side of the table wondering, ‘What is this teacher going to say about my child?’”
At the same time, CA faculty members know well that in most cases they are peering through only a tiny window into their students’ vast lives, and that there is always more to any narrative than the excerpts they may perceive in the classroom. Even a child who may be flying academically could still be struggling at home—or vice versa. As Olmstead relates, “They could be an A student but still feel nervous walking into my classroom every day.”
“I always want to know more of the whole picture,” is how Wall describes the drive to understand students which all CA teachers seem to share.
Curiosity and its sophisticated older sibling, empathy, thus occupy a crucial place in negotiating the complex triad that is the parent-teacher-student relationship. Without overreaching (what Snow describes as “making the mistake of thinking you’re a counselor”), teachers must be fully present for families, listening carefully to all the voices in the room, acknowledging that unseen dynamics are probably at work, yet always foregrounding the experiences of the student.
Of course, communication among the key players is never confined to a couple of hurried conferences—or even to just the key players themselves. Advisors, other divisional faculty members, learning specialists, deans, and principals all share regular reports, progress notes, and other insights on individual students year round, adding up to a broad continuum of understanding that encompasses so much more than grades and discipline reports.
It’s like building a giant house, observes Snow. “If our conferences are like a tiny snapshot—maybe of the grain of the wood in the siding—we do want to do our best to show something meaningful there.”
“At the same time,” she adds, “the really beautiful thing is the labor that goes into the house as a whole, over the course of a year or more. That’s what distinguishes CA as a school: the quotidian, day-by-day work of getting to know students and care for them.”
Building trust
Yet the parents and guardians who come to campus on conference day bring with them a depth of knowledge and experience that may not always perfectly align with a given teacher’s professional perspective on their child.
Recognizing this, Warrender always begins discussions with parents by sharing the student’s own self evaluation; this element of conferences is standard, not just in the Lower School, but in all three divisions.
Olmstead sees the student-led Middle School conferences every spring as akin to ‘leading a horse to water.’ “Sometimes all it takes is sitting there in silence for a minute with the parents, giving the student the opportunity to talk about what makes them proud or what’s challenging,” he says, “and they start to feel safe enough to open up about themselves.”
Centering on the student, highlighting the importance of listening, rather than prescribing, Warrender continues, makes tough conversations easier. “By highlighting their words, maybe even something fun or surprising they said one day, parents and guardians see that you genuinely know their child.” The trust that grows from these kinds of moments, she continues, makes families that much more willing to buy into the observations and strategies that she may offer.
CA teachers make it a point, however, to refrain from sharing surprise bad news on conference day; these difficult communications should happen in real time, at the earliest signs a student might be struggling, so that parents and guardians feel well connected to what is happening in the classroom. In this way, conferences turn into progress checks, during which teachers and their essential partners, the family members, may celebrate wins and plan for what’s next.
Preceptor Julie Wei, who teaches her students Chinese through all four years of their high school careers, observes that sometimes her role simply becomes assuring parents and students that even what may feel like big setbacks are only temporary obstacles.
“Teaching the same students from Ninth Grade to Twelfth, I see how they can change dramatically in just a short period of time—even over the summer. I tell parents, ‘Be patient; they will get there.’”
Conferences are but a moment in time, she notes; even when sitting down with parents to review a student’s performance, a stack of graded work at the ready, faculty members often find themselves listening more than speaking, and responding more intuitively to parents’ concerns. “I am always asking myself, ‘How deep should I go here?’” Wei explains. “I may not share everything—sometimes what’s needed is more individual work with the student.”
Conferences also take courage, Wall adds: courage on the part of the student, the parents or guardians, and the teacher. “It can be challenging for kids to acknowledge what they’re struggling with; and for parents, they may well be walking into conferences with worries that are informed by their own past experiences. The challenge for us as teachers is to try to hear the full story, to understand where everyone is coming from, and meet them there.”
Building a shared mission
On the checklist of student skills that Warrender uses to prepare for each of her conferences, empathy is right there next to executive functioning and grit. And, in fact, the scheduled discussions with parents and guardians that happen twice a year at CA are as much about how a child is doing as a person and an individual as they are about how they are performing on tests and assignments.
The reason for this is simple, Warrender points out.
“In any conversation—whether it’s me speaking with parents about their child, or it’s something much later in the child’s life, their education or their career—if communication isn’t going well, it’s usually the empathy piece that’s missing.”
Moments of surprise, even moments of disagreement or disappointment—these are when empathy matters most, Warrender goes on. “When I learn that a child’s having meltdowns at home, that changes how I might think about the buttoned-up way they present themselves to me at school. And vice versa, if I have a child who’s crying about a difficulty in my classroom, then that’s so valuable for the family to hear, if it’s not something they’re experiencing in the evenings.”
Sensitive as they may be, these shared insights are more than worth the momentary discomfort their genesis may cause, adds Wall.
“Empathy means not lowering the bar,” she explains. “We all share the same goal: seeing this child become the best student and person they can be. So, how can we talk together about it? How can we move forward constructively?”
At their best, conferences at CA become opportunities for the adults in the room to rediscover the very people on whom they are so intently focused: children. “As a parent, that’s all I ever want,” says Olmstead. “And as a teacher, the most important thing I can do is show parents and guardians that I know their child.”
Because at the end of the day, Olmstead makes clear, everyone feels a little vulnerable at conferences; and every participant deserves grace and compassion—empathy, in other words—the recognition that, though their best efforts may at times fall short, they are nonetheless the very best anyone could offer.