Smart Goal for Parent Teacher Conference Format Study:

● Specific:​ This will allow the voices of all stakeholders (parents, students and staff) to be
heard around the topic of parent teacher conference equibility.
● Measurable: ​Qualitative and quantitative data from stakeholders who volunteered to
participate in a google form.
● Achievable: ​The following will need to be done to be considered achieved.
1. Review current parent teacher conference practices
2. Research parent teacher conference formats
3. Design google form for each stakeholder (Parents, Teachers and Students)
a. Parents - 8 qualitative and 5 quantitative questions
b. Students - 5 qualitative and 2 quantitative questions
c. Teachers - 4 qualitative and 6 quantitative questions
4. Gather computers to be placed into classrooms for parents/guardians to be
allowed to volunteer to participate in the google form during conferences
5. Share google form link to both students and teachers to participate in
● Relevant: ​When allowing parents to choose between two nights in the middle of the
week with evening specific time slots to reserve for conferences doesn’t allow all families
to have a chance to make it to conferences. This could be due to multiple reasons:
1. Inability to take off work
2. Lack of transportation
3. Lack of internet capability to register for a time slot
4. Not able to have all stakeholders present
● Time Specific: ​ One day to review current practices, gathering and researching articles
and designing 10 statement google forms. One day to share google forms and start
collecting data from students and staff. On the day of the conferences place computers
into prechoosen conference rooms and collect data from parents/guardians.
______________________________________________________________________

Plan:
The change that I am testing is based around the notion that our current parent teacher
conferences allow only a certain group of individuals to make it to conferences for their junior
high students. There are many barriers present that allow for misrepresentations to take place
(childcare, work, time, transportation, language, access to internet to name a few).

I will be creating a questionnaire for each of the stakeholders (parents, teachers, and students)
based around the notion of parent teacher conferences. Based on the evidence, I will be able to
determine a more cohesive way to run parent teacher conferences in a junior high setting.

I predict that many of the stakeholders do not like the current status of our parent teacher
conferences, because of this I believe that parents and staff will want conferences to be more
open and flexible to fit both the busy lives of parents and the ability for teachers to meet every
student’s parents.
The individuals that will be involved in this study will be part of two school teams. This includes
roughly 12 teachers, 260 students, and their parents/guardians.

The test of change will be based around gathering information about future parent teacher
conferences. I will allow all stakeholders to answer questions on how they believe conferences
should be run in a junior high setting.

The time that this will take to collect the data will be over two nights of parent teacher
conferences (ran the normal way). I will review the data and make a recommendation on how
they should/could be run in the future.

The resources needed to run this PDSA are 2 teams of classroom teachers that would be willing
to house computers in their classroom over conferences to collect parents responses. To
collect student responses I will need those same teacher to conduct the questionnaire prior to
their classroom activity starting. For teachers I will send an email out to the same two teams to
collect their responses.

The data that needs to be collected will be based off of current state of parent teacher
conferences, how a change in format would be received by all stakeholders and what
drawbacks would there be to any changes in the current format.

Survey Links:
● Parent Survey
● Student Survey
● Teacher Survey
____________________________________________________________________________

DO:

The data was collected over a 2-day period during Parent-Teacher Conferences. Each
Stakeholder was able to fill out their respected form. There was 91 pieces of data collected
from the parents, 113 pieces of data collected from the students and 20 pieces of data collected
from the teachers.

STUDY​:

Parents​:
Would like for conferences to last between 6-10 minutes and be notified by a teacher through
email that conferences are being scheduled and they would like for their students to attend.
Parents still view that conferences as an important part of their child’s education. The focus that
parents would like the conferences to be towards is current academics and behaviors in the
classroom. 55% of the parents are not pleased with the current status of our conference format
and 43% would like to see more open house all day format. Of the parents that came to
conference 20% had to take off work to attend with another 17% not able to make it to
conferences.

Teachers​:
Teachers would like conferences to run between 1 to 5 minutes with a more open house format
where teachers are in their own rooms and parents are allowed to bounce around to the
teachers that they would like to see. The focus that teachers would like the conferences to be
towards is current achievement level and behaviors in the classroom. Of the teachers that took
the survey 75% do not like the current format. They are displeased with the days of the week
we have them placed on and that they have to go into conferences after a full day of work.

Student:
Students are more likely than not to attend their own conference. However, 33% of the students
surveyed did not talk to their parents about conferences and what to expect from the meetings.
45% of the students had no idea that conferences were taking place and did not receive an
email explaining how conferences are run.

What did I learn:

From this process I learned that our parents and teachers have a somewhat different view on
how the format for conferences should be held once they have started. Where parents want a
lengthy conversation, teachers are looking for a quick overview. The day conferences should
be held is also an area of discrepancy between the two parties. Parents would like to see
conferences held for one day on Wednesday, while teachers would like to see conferences last
for two days (Tuesday & Wednesday). Lastly, parents would like to see conferences held with
all of the teachers. Teachers on the other end would like to see conferences

Did i meet the goal of determining conference formats:

I believe that I meet the goal of determining the parent teacher conference formats. All
stakeholders would like to see conferences that are focused around both current academic
standings and student behaviors in more of an open house format.

ACT
I would recommend that Parent Teacher Conferences be held Tuesday - Thursday. This would
allow for all stakeholders to be able to find time to either get off work or plan for conferences.
The format should be changed to a complete openhouse format, where all of the team teachers
are in the same room and parents can come when they are able to. Along with this the time
window for conferences to take place should be changed from after school to having complete
days to conduct conferences.