Choosing To Learn

Tips For Scheduling Parent-Teacher Conferences

12 July 2018

Barry Johnson

Parent-teacher conferences are essential to a student's development, but they can also be a chore to schedule. Not only do you need to juggle each parent's work commitments, but you also need to make sure you can make all of the conferences within the allotted amount of time. As you begin the scheduling process, consider these tips to improve your efficiency and avoid any costly mistakes.

Make Sure You Have the Right Contact Info

It should go without saying, but it's very frequent that you could be contacting the non-custodial parent, or that you could be arranging things with one parent when you need to be arranging things with both parents separately. At the beginning of the year, make sure you have the right contact information. Often, school districts can mix this information up.

Consider a Cloud-Based Scheduling System

A cloud-based scheduling system can import your own schedule and let parents choose their own time slots. You can select the time slots that are available to them, and then they can find the slots that are most useful for them. Once they select it, it will automatically be shown as selected to other parents, so other parents won't be able to select the same time slot. This is one of the most effective ways to improve communications. 

Give Yourself Time

Remember that some appointments are going to go much longer than you expect. Make sure to give yourself a buffer of at least 15 minutes before and after each appointment; even if you feel that you can call it short, there are appointments that may end up going longer than others. 

Contact Them Ahead of Time

Send an email to each parent before the meeting confirming the date and time, to ensure that they haven't forgotten. If you're using a scheduling system, the scheduling system itself may be able to call or text them ahead of time and to let them reschedule automatically if they need to. The more of the system you can automate, the better. Once you get used to automation features, you'll find the process faster and easier during the next year.

Sometimes scheduling is going to go awry, but with the above tips, you should be able to avoid double-booking. Ideally, you'll be able to get all of your parent-teacher conference scheduling done with time to spare, so you can do what you do best: teach.

Share  

Search