Forming Parent-Teacher Teams

My name is Thai Nguyen, a 2010 Arizona Teaching Fellow and current Elementary Education teacher at Loma Linda Elementary School in Phoenix.  Last year, as a first-year teacher, I was able to get to know all of my students’ parents.  I met them twice a year during parent-teacher conferences and frequently made phone calls home to update them on their child’s academic and behavior progress.  But I felt that I did not do enough to involve parents in their child’s education.

This year I have adopted a program called Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT).  Instead of the traditional parent-teacher conferences, under the APTT model, three 75-minute parent meetings and one 30-minute individual meeting are held throughout the year.  During the 75-minute meetings, all parents come together where I review class and individual student data, e.g. test scores.  At this all-parent meeting, I also teach parents reading and math activities that they should do with their child every night.  The 30-minute individual meeting is where I sit down with each parent and student and discuss the student’s individual progress.

So far parents have reacted very positively to the APTT program.  Parents have told me that they have always wanted to help their child with schoolwork but never knew how.  APTT gives parents resources and training on how to support their child at home.  I also had parents tell me that previously when their child came home with academic data, they did not understand what the numbers and the graphs meant.  But after attending an APTT meeting, parents now know the importance and the implications of the data.      

There is no question that teachers are the greatest factor in student achievement.  From the moment students walk into the classroom, it is my responsibility to get students where they should be academically.  But parents also serve an important role in their child’s education.  Forming parent-teacher teams allows parents to be more involved and for us to work together to support their child’s academic needs.