Anytime a parent can make a 1-day shoe sale has no excuse making their child's no more than hour long meeting or taking time to go up to the school for various functions. Sometimes we put our priorities in the wrong order.

I know you weren't trying to offend, but I have to say, I studied to be an insurance agent and I've been doing it for two years. My child is 8. Our household cannot make it on one income and while my hours are flexible now, that wasn't always the case. When my son was in Kindergarten, aside from the first day of school (which I took unpaid time off for) I didn't even get to drop him off or pick him up. The daycare did that. There were those parents that could volunteer in the classroom and chaperone field trips but I didn't have child friendly bosses and if it was a choice between being able to feed my child or volunteer, it had to be the prior. During that time, I did the newsletter (usually at 1am two days before the deadline) and attended meetings when I could.
My hours are flexible now (because I'm the boss now) but our finances have suffered by my being more involved and I hope that I will be able to continue but it's up in the air.
Like you said, you are available to your parents and students at all times but I can only reach the teachers during school hours. In fact, 15 minutes after school lets out, you're hard pressed to find a teacher anywhere in the building, even in the lounge. They don't give out their home numbers, and use the school e-mail so if you do want to talk to them and it's the weekend, you have to wait until sometime Monday to get a response. We rarely have any teachers at our PTA meetings unless they are asking for money. Never is there a teacher at our school that regularly attends the meetings (I try to defend because I know they have families of their own) and their has never been one to serve or show interest in serving on the board. I still love our teachers and I know that they care but if any of them ever made that comment to me, especially when I was working for the "harpie", I might have bitten their head off.
I try really hard to see the teacher's side of things but you have to understand that there are parents who sometimes have only a minute or two of their time. My neighbors are good parents but they work four jobs between them and are gone from sun up to sun down. Both their kids are going on to college with the last one graduating from high school this June.
Sure you might deem them as excuses but you don't know whether it's a choice between seeing the program or paying the rent, sometimes we have to make those choices. It killed me that I couldn't be more involved in my sons school life and I missed a lot but what choice did I have? Do you know each of these parents stories?
Okay, got if off my chest.

Pottsville mom, I agree w/the discrepancy with the times. This is a particular day (4 times/year) that is set aside, but not etched in stone. If parents cannot attend these times, we try to accommodate them on another day, by appointment. I agree, the conference times stink. But again, I make time (not saying other teachers don't, its just I have more flexibility and less students). Keep in mind, other teachers go out their way, but we can't spoon-feed parents "all the time."

I do phone conferences at my home (parents do have my telephone number to call not only for conferences, but anything they may have a question about), home visits (I know our regular ed teachers may have difficulties doing this considering the large caseload), etc. Our conference nights does not correspond with the PTA meeting nights, in which it should because the hours are from 6:30 - no later than 8 p.m. and if we can snag parents in at that time, why not do it.

In terms of conference times, majority of the schools (even out-of-state) have that time allotted.

One thing I can say with this forum, the parents that have responded are the ones that show interest in their child's education. Some of you may not attend the meetings regularly, but are still active and that is truly appreciated by the teachers as well as the entire school. We just have to reach out and get more parents. I know it's difficult (goodness knows I know), but we can't give up. If we do, we are giving up on millions of children. Remember we are that village!

Towanda, let me play devil's advocate. You say your school holds teacher conferences from 3:30-5:30. How are working parents suppose to be there?

If schools really want parents involved, the need to be SPECIFIC about what they want parents to do. I believe that their is a hugh disconnect between what teachers expect and what parents believe is parental involvement. Many studies and articles back that up.

I am a very involved parent, but I have not been to a PTO meeting in six months. There has been nothing on the agenda and I don't have the time just to go.

What frustrates me sometimes is the attitude that teachers feel like they should not have to do anything outside school hours. I know there are exceptions (you are one), but for the most part parents are expected to miss work or rearrange things to be there during school hours. Some parents just don't have that luxury.
We have a lot of parents who have factory jobs. Those are not the kind of jobs you can leave for a couple of hours.

I think that is up to the administration to provide an atmosphere and TIME for their teachers to communicate with parents.

Ok the excuses thing makes a lot more sense now (also granted I wrote that late last night and got myself all confused) Definately agree newsletters, babysitting, refreshments are good things at PTO meetings. I thing our problem is our president was pretty disorganized this year to the point we now have to bribe (again for lack of better wording) We are also doing an ice cream social at the beginning of the school year, sending out pamphlets with PTO info, and we are going to start emailing instead of phone calls (all new things) I think there really is a lot a PTO can do to get parents in, if the parents are receptive. If they arn't your jacked (like us [img]smile.gif[/img] )

I also believe all on this forum are in agreement that we believe there needs to be more parental involvement. As far as excuses go, I am pretty sure what Towanda means are all the ones we have described as hearing ourselves. It's tough and I think it will always be a struggle to get people out to meetings which is what I believe the thread was started about (can't be sure as I post now, so many posted and the topic got changed a bit here and there). I know for us, we have doubled our meeting attendance by all the little things we have done, childcare, doorprize, refreshments, but that only makes it about 35 parents out of 600 students. (still a small amount in comparison to the number or students) It's funny when we get a lot more than that, I know we have the complainers out in force LOL! and it is going to be an interesting meeting that night!

Doing a newsletter to keep people informed has helped us. If people can not attend the meetings (for whatever reason) they can read the newsletter that comes out after our meetings to see a little of what's going on and if we need help on a function coming up, we have a phone number listed to call. I have found that while we would like our meeting attendance to be great, it probably will never be that way but having the help when we need it, that is the important factor because: no help=no event. We have not had to cancel an event yet.

lol I actually thought we were agreeing about the same thing.....parents not stepping up in their child's education. I'm sure its 1000 times more frustrating as a teacher then a parent of a student. I'm not sure what your comment about only seeing excuses on this board means. I'm pretty sure all the parents here feel the same for their children and that is why we are all so actively involved.