Parent Teacher Meeting Jitters

Tomorrow I will have my first parent teacher meeting as the teacher, not the parent. As the parent I’ve only been to a handful of parent teacher meetings, all of which were parent teacher conferences, a way to touch base and gain a better understanding of what my children were learning and how they were behaving in preschool and kindergarten. While I feel confident in my part as the teacher in this particular instance, it is the unknown of having never done this before that makes me feel nervous about it.

On Wednesday morning when I was on duty in the cafeteria, a young man who I had never seen before handed me a paper and told me, “this is my sister’s. She told me to turn it in for her.” As I looked down at the paper, my first thought was to put an automatic zero on it. But was I overreacting? So I did what I thought best and contacted the teacher who I am to go to if I have any questions. I emailed my mentor teacher the following:

I specifically told my students yesterday that they needed to turn in their assessments before they leave class, and if they needed more time then they could come back and see me to complete it. Yet, I had a student's younger brother turn in her assessment this morning for her. This is the same student who argued with me yesterday during class telling me it was my job to get her email and password for her. What do you suggest I do? I want to put a big zero on the paper for not following instructions, but that may not be appropriate. The student currently has a 63% in my class. If I put a zero on it, she would fail.

Instead of responding via email, my mentor teacher showed up in my classroom before class started that morning to tell me that I should definitely put a zero on the student’s paper. By the student removing the assessment from my classroom she compromised the entire assessment. There was no way for me to know if it was actually her work or the work of another student’s. Besides the fact that I specifically stated that the assessments were not to leave my classroom.  

Before my mentor teacher left she added, “I would call her mom too. You need to let her know what happened. Then make sure you log everything.” 

After my mentor teacher left my classroom, I felt this anxiety growing in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to have to call anyone’s mom. Couldn’t I just email her? I’m much better at writing than speaking. What if she can hear my nervousness over the phone? What if she answers and I don’t know what to say? What if she screams at me and makes me feel like it’s my fault her daughter is failing? What if my class is the reason her daughter can’t graduate?

With all of these questions running on replay in my head throughout the morning, my anxiety grew as the day went on. Finally it was time for my planning period, the last period of the day. I figured that would be as good a time as any to call this student’s mom. I didn’t know quite what to say, so I hunted down my mentor teacher and found her in the front office. I had her walk me through what I was about to dive into. Thankfully she told me exactly what to say and how to word it. She also told me that she didn’t like calling parents either, but it was part of our job. Then she said, “pray for a voicemail.” 

As I walked back to my classroom, I repeated the mantra, “please be a voicemail, please be a voicemail,”. I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what to say if they answered the phone and even if they didn’t answer the phone, making sure not to forget anything, so I typed out what I was going to say, before I called. As the phone rang, I kept repeating my mantra, “please be a voicemail, please be a voicemail.” It worked. My mantra worked. I got a voicemail and I read the message that I had typed out verbatim. The only problem was I never typed an ending. So I awkwardly, said, “thank you.” Then remembered I didn’t leave it open to her contacting me if she had any questions. So after a moment’s pause, I then added, “if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me or call me.” That was when I realized I didn’t know my email or my phone number, so instead of leaving it for the mom to call or email me, I awkwardly hung up. 

The next day, I thought I was in the clear, when the student acted as if nothing happened. I figured mom must have gotten the message and had a talk with the student and I didn’t have to do anything more. I didn’t hear anything all day, until that is I checked my email just before heading out the door to go home. That was when I saw that I had been invited to attend a parent meeting Monday morning before school starts. I was confused as to why I received the email, because I had forgotten about the assessment and the issue with that particular student. And I didn’t recognize the student’s name on the parent meeting invitation. So I called the front office to clarify. Turns out the student’s name that I didn’t recognize was the younger brother. Mom wants to meet with me tomorrow morning, to find out what exactly happened. 

Now I know that I have done nothing wrong. If anything, I am doing my job to the best of my ability and am holding my students accountable for their actions. Putting myself in that mom’s shoes, I would want my kid’s teacher to inform me if they did something similar to this. That being said, I’m still nervous, even knowing that both my mentor teacher and my principal have my back and fully support what I have done. It’s the unknown, the having never done or experienced anything like this in my life before.