The theme of my Ignite talk this past November was “Cringe and Do Better,” and it’s the reason I leave old blog posts up on this dusty old website. Boldly-declared stances from 2009 are almost all obsolete, and some are straight-up embarassing, but just as we want students to iterate and improve on their thinking, so we should expect the same from adults.
So let’s take my thoughts on Parent Involvement from 2023 and etch them in stone on the internet, an ebenezer that will someday be a marker on my journey toward better and more excellent school leadership.
It’s noteworthy that the book was first mentioned to me via a Twitter chat #ClearTheAir where teachers would focus on the impact of their biases and latent racism in order to become better and more equitable. (Link)
Halfway in, however, I realized the book would help me more if I waited until I was a full-time school administrator, not just a temporary one. So I shelved it. Having finished it, there are 3 big takeaways for my practice this year and beyond.
Takeaway #1
I wasn’t trained for this.
Right out of the gate in the Introduction, the author notes:
And I knew that most [teachers] had not been adequately prepared in their professional training programs to build relationships with families as a central part of their work.
That was consistent with my experience. I entered teaching in 2007 with one prior classroom lesson, no math classes taken since high school, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Youth Ministry and Adolescent Studies. While I was set up well to have appropriate and supportive relationships with students, I was woefully unprepared to set boundaries to govern those relationships with them. Additionally, my interactions with parents were plagued by fear and deference for a decade after I began.
Here’s a quote from a blog post I wrote about that time:
First-Year Vaudrey: Hello… uh… this is Mr. Vaudrey, I’m calling to discuss… um… David’s inappropriate jokes in class.
Parent: Well, David is standing right here, and he says that you laughed when he made that inappropriate joke, so why are you calling me?
My experience that first year were consistent with the next page in that introduction, where the author said:
The Parent-Teacher Conference reflects a territorial warfare, a clash of cultures between the two primary arenas of acculturation in our society.
and that “territorial” nature of the parent/school relationship is most present in my current role as school administrator. It wasn’t until I sat in this chair and made parent calls and had parent meetings that I felt what the author describes throughout the book:
Takeaway #2
Parents likely have strong feelings about middle school, holdover memories from when they were teenagers struggling with content, being bulled, or called to the admin office for discipline.
As recently as this week, I have been learning that the how of my parent meetings is more important than the what we describe.
To put it another way, my wife can tell you—early in our marriage—how frustrating our disagreements were. I would spend most of my energy defining the details of the disagreement, and making sure we were speaking in a level voice, not exaggerating, until she would finally throw her hands in the air and say, “Fine! It was a Tuesday, not a Wednesday! Can we just focus on the issue?!”
I spent so much defining the playing field that I missed the game entirely. My principal and I met with a difficult parent, and he gave me the same feedback. “With a parent like that, you need to define what a win looks like, and it won’t be agreeing on what happened.“
The author references that emotional connection multiple times throughout the book, noting that:
[families] begin to feel the same way they felt when they were students—small and powerless.
page 4
To combat that feeling, I make a point to tell the family some version of this, “The sweet kid that you know from home? I know that kid, too! She’s not a bad kid, she’s a good kid. And good kids make bad choices every day. Our goal isn’t to punish kids, our goal is to help them make better choices.”
Most of the time, they thank me for my attention.
Most of the time.
Takeaway #3
Students need to be present and involved in the family conference and—by extension—their own education.
The author suggested having students present their own performance, grading themselves, sharing their own experience, and I think there’s a place for that. It is—unfortunately—another specific task that requires some expertise on the part of the teacher.
- Which work do I select?
- How do I structure the meeting so there’s a progression?
- What if the student isn’t doing well?
- How much trust do I place in the student to accurately represent themselves.
With IEPs specifically, there’s a gap between what we’re discussing and the student’s ability to understand and contribute to the conversation. The best case-carriers I know will call on the students to share their strengths also.
Problems with the Book
There are large blocks of text that are hugely classist, portraying the rich parents as “involved” and the poor parents as “scared and emotional.” While that’s worth discussing, the author didn’t explicitly describe the privilege inherent in free time and a positive relationship with school. Not all families are able to get involved in their kids’ education.
That’s the reason I shut the book before finishing it.
~Matt “Take the good, leave the bad” Vaudrey