Not attending Parent/Teachers Conf. --- go directly to jail

[KnitShoni]

Unless they work three 8 hours shifts every single day they should be able to find a small amount of time to talk to a teacher

Really? Single parent with more than one job should be able to find time to talk to a teacher? When they barely have time for themselves or their kids at home? Ok. Have you been to a parent/teacher conference? It's not in and out in 5 minutes. Not to mention the fact that, at least where I am, the kids of parents with multiple jobs usually aren't the problem children.

Also, the thing about having conferences after school: Are the teachers going to be paid for the time they're taking away from their own families? I have several friends who are teachers who hold tutoring sessions on weekends. They don't get paid for that.

[McDreidel09]

Unless they work three 8 hours shifts every single day they should be able to find a small amount of time to talk to a teacher

From what I gather from talking to teachers about their day at work, they stay at the school until a certain time. At my old high school, we were dismissed at 3:20. Between 3:30 and 4, teachers were getting out of there. Unless there was a sport to coach or a club to run, all of the teachers were out of there at 4.

Now let's take the single parent working two jobs. It is very rare that a person with two jobs, let alone three, gets a day off. So they work first shift and second shift. Well, by the time they get off of first shift job, they have to go to the second shift job. There goes any time for parent teacher conferences.

There has been one instance of my mother not going to parent teacher conferences. At her last job, there was only her, her assistant, and then a higher up. My mother worked one shift and her assistant worked the other, though their shifts overlapped at some point. During parent teacher conferences, my mother's assistant didn't show up at all, even though my mom told her what was going on and got her leaving early cleared with big boss. My mom had to work from open to close because her assistant didn't show up or call. My mom felt so guilty and kept saying how she thought that the teachers would think that she was a bad parent. She only missed one conference out of my entire grade/middle/high school career.

Yep. What a bad parent.

[Red Panda]

Why can't they do confrences over the phone? Or plan them far ahead of time with the ability to reschedual? If people actually work on it they can make confrences.

[McDreidel09]

Why can't they do confrences over the phone? Or plan them far ahead of time with the ability to reschedual? If people actually work on it they can make confrences.

Have you ever been to a conference? Teachers show papers and grade reports. Kinda hard to do over the phone.

As for scheduling far ahead of time, it can happen, but it is a lot harder for the people with two or three jobs to even schedule a conference.

Yep. Those darn lazy parents who work a lot to provide for their children. Can't even make a conference. As Fryk stated, let's punish them for not being able to make it by keeping them away from their children for a few days. That will show them!

[jackfaire]

I never understood how not talking to the teacher has jack shit to do with not being interested in your kids.

My mom did one with my second grade teacher and refused to go to another one all of that year because my teacher just said I was an idiotic moron who would never amount to shit.

Didn't mean she didn't care meant she cared and my teacher didn't.

Shocking.

[Boozy]

I have to agree that even the busiest person probably has 30 minutes or so once or twice a year to talk with their child's teacher. There will be a few cases where that's not true, but let's not get crazy here and assume that its a common thing.

But I still question the value of this law. Parents who need to be forced by threat of imprisonment to attend arent going to become attentive parents afterwards. Good parents either go anyway, or don't because their kids have no issues in school. It's pointless legislation.

[Red Panda]

Have you ever been to a conference? Teachers show papers and grade reports. Kinda hard to do over the phone.

As for scheduling far ahead of time, it can happen, but it is a lot harder for the people with two or three jobs to even schedule a conference.

Yep. Those darn lazy parents who work a lot to provide for their children. Can't even make a conference. As Fryk stated, let's punish them for not being able to make it by keeping them away from their children for a few days. That will show them!

Obvously over the phone is less then ideal but it would be better then not at all.

[AdminAssistant]

Parent/teacher conferences are important so that the teacher can update the parent on how the child is doing and how the parents can help. I didn't need any help with grades (straight A student), but I had a lot of problems with socialization and anger management that had to be worked out. If they can't make the conference, a parent should be touching base with a teacher to see how their child is doing. It's called taking an interest in your child's education.

What's really bothering are the parents who are unreachable. What if their kid shows up with head lice and gets sent home? (Happened at the school my mom worked at countless times.) What if there's a disciplinary issue? What if the kid has a medical emergency at school? Too many parents think of school as a convenient babysitter, and not a part of their child's development.

[Kimmik]

What's really bothering are the parents who are unreachable. What if their kid shows up with head lice and gets sent home? (Happened at the school my mom worked at countless times.) What if there's a disciplinary issue? What if the kid has a medical emergency at school? Too many parents think of school as a convenient babysitter, and not a part of their child's development.

This was my folks.. they were not reachable because they both worked. For a while my mother was a single mother she worked various shifts at the old folks home. So roughly my brother raised me in the fact of getting me up, dressed, fed and to school. This doesn't make my mother a bad parent, she did what she had to do.

I knew kids that didn't have phones, heck I still know people without phones. As a phone is something easy to cut. Luckily the county I lived in everyone Knew Everyone... and the one major accident where I broke my nose... the principle threw me in his car and rushed me to the closest doc, who knew they could treat me till my mother got there... 2 hours later cause of where my mother worked my mom showed up... just in time to apologize for the blood all over the poor principles new car lol.