By Stephanie Schupska
University of
Georgia

With getting children ready for school, feeding them a healthy
breakfast, making sure they get home safely and taking them to
practices, today’s parents have a lot on their plates.

Actual schoolwork can get lost in the rush. A key to children’s
success is paying attention to what goes on during the eight
hours they spend at school.

“I came across a recent survey in one state that said fewer
than 20 percent of parents are in regular contact with their
child’s school and teacher,” said Don Bower, a University of
Georgia Cooperative Extension human development
specialist. “Nobody is happy with that.”

As teachers and schools search for ways to engage their
students, sometimes the one missing element is parental
involvement. Eighth-grade teacher Julie Crow said the best way
a parent can connect with a child’s teachers is to show up at
parent-teacher conferences.

“We make a lot of appointments, and I bet about 60 percent of
them don’t show up,” she said.

Crow teaches mathematics at East Jackson Middle School in
Commerce, Ga. Parents there can also meet with teachers when
they pick up their child’s report card.

“It seems like a lot of parents come when their child is in
sixth grade,” she said. “But by the time they get to eighth
grade, not as many parents come.”

When students reach middle school, Bower said, many parents
tend to believe their student is more independent and
responsible. In fact, parents may need to be in closer contact
with their child’s teacher during these challenging years, he
said.

“In middle school and high school, students have issues of
bigger crowds and less one-to-one contact,” he said. “Typically
at the middle school level, many parents are overwhelmed with
trying to meet all the teachers and keep up with what’s going
on in all those classes.”

Bower said a solution to the teacher overload would be for a
parent to find someone at the school who knows the child and to
talk to that person regularly.

“The most effective systems are where both the school and the
parent understand the learning goals of the student and work
together to achieve those goals,” he said. “That’s done in an
environment where responsibility and power are shared between
the school and the parents.”

Sometimes, parents doubt the necessity of parent-teacher
conferences, he said.

“For some, it informs them of a situation to begin with,” Crow
said. “So many parents don’t know what’s happening in their
kids’ lives. For some parents, the conference doesn’t do
anything. For others, it goes home and lights a fire.”

Bower and Crow offer these tips on what parents can do to
communicate with their child’s teachers.

1. Use the Web. “More than 95 percent of schools now
have their own Web sites,” Bower said. “Using the Web also
makes it much easier, especially for parents gone during
traditional hours.” Web use could include something as common
as e-mail. However, many schools now post a student’s password-
protected grades and homework online.

2. Call. “The old standby is telephone contact between
the parent and teacher,” Bower said. “Make sure to call during
the teacher’s free period if the teacher has one. Parents need
to understand when it’s a good time to reach the teacher.”
Teachers generally only have about an hour and a half per day
to call a parent back as well as complete other projects, Crow
said.

3. Ask the child about homework assignments, tests and
notes from the teacher. Talk to your student. “I think parents
need to do more than just meet with their student’s teachers at
conferences,” Crow said, “even if it’s not necessarily to talk
to me more, but talking to their kids more.”