Springdale schools gain experience with student-led conferences

Matthew Clemente, 11, sixth-grader at Sonora Middle School, leads his parents, Herbert and Sonia Clemente, in a conference Thursday at the school in Springdale. The district is using more student led conferences than the traditional teacher led conferences. Matthew showed his parents his work and talked about the areas he excels in and where he may need a little more work. For more photos, go to www.nwadg.com/photos.
Matthew Clemente, 11, sixth-grader at Sonora Middle School, leads his parents, Herbert and Sonia Clemente, in a conference Thursday at the school in Springdale. The district is using more student led conferences than the traditional teacher led conferences. Matthew showed his parents his work and talked about the areas he excels in and where he may need a little more work. For more photos, go to www.nwadg.com/photos.

SPRINGDALE -- Students no longer have to wonder what their parents are hearing from teachers during conferences that take place twice a year.

Instead, students in all Springdale schools are now active participants, with those in third grade and up sharing portfolios of their work, grades, test scores, goals and plans for reaching those goals.

Race to the Top grant

Springdale School District was awarded $25.88 million in federal funding in December 2013. Projects include: revisions of high school schedules, advisory programs, personal learning plans and student-led conferences, multiple pathways to graduation, centralized prekindergarten, technology, parent academy and School of Innovation

Source: Springdale School District

The School District won a $25.88 million Race to the Top grant from the U.S. Department of Education in December 2013 for a series of projects focused on personalizing education. The majority of the money is allocated for technology, including providing a laptop or tablet for every child in the district of more than 21,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The grant also provided for implementation of student-led conferences instead of the traditional parent and teacher meetings.

This is the second year all elementary and middle schools in Springdale are required to have student-led conferences. The new format was implemented in the spring at the junior high schools. The high schools are transitioning to student-led conferences this school year, said Marcia Smith, assistant superintendent for sixth through 12th grades.

"A student-led conference is about as personal as we can get with a child knowing exactly where he or she wants to go," said Kathy Morledge, assistant superintendent for prekindergarten through fifth grades.

Students spend time with homeroom teachers or advisory teachers to develop personal learning plans they share twice a year in their school conference. Advisory programs and the implementation of personal learning plans also were supported by the grant.

Ethan Raymond, 11, sat with his parents, Ryan and Regina Murphy, on Tuesday at a table in Alicia Hughes's fifth-grade classroom at Jones Elementary. Ethan opened his school laptop and a binder to report on his progress this school year.

Ethan said he wants to be a football player and a wrestler when he grows up. He said he plans to work harder to pay attention during learning time, to read more books at home and to increase the number of curl-ups he can do in physical education class.

He and his parents talked about test scores, grades and school work. Hughes stayed close by to support Ethan and give further explanation to his parents.

"I'd rather hear it from Ethan," Ryan Murphy said of his son's conference. "This is by far the best format for the parent-teacher conferences. Ethan seems to enjoy it. Now he's getting to tell us what he's doing right and what he wants to improve on. It's a good boost to his self-esteem."

A new experience

Anna Shaw, another fifth-grade teacher at Jones, used to share test scores and grades with parents and talk about the expectations in fifth grade. She would be available for questions.

"It didn't feel like they were getting an accurate picture of what was happening in a school day," Shaw said.

When the new format started last school year, Shaw and her students didn't know what to expect. She soon realized many students, a majority of whom are bilingual, only knew how to talk about school in English, which created a language barrier with their parents. A translator was available, but teachers wanted students to be the ones speaking.

Teachers have developed phrases to help their students communicate with their parents in their first language, Shaw said.

Now parents are getting more information about the school day with their children showing examples of their work, discussing their performance and sharing their goals, Shaw said. Students take their behavior and assignments more seriously because they are the ones reporting to their parents.

Students have a better understanding of what their grades and test scores mean, she said.

"There's almost more parent involvement after the conference," Shaw said. "They know what's going on in math and science and reading."

Gaining responsibility

Matthew Clemente, 11, shared an essay he wrote about waves he saw on a family vacation in California during his conference Thursday at Sonora Middle School.

The sixth-grader showed his parents Herbert and Sonia Clemente comments from his teacher asking for more dialogue and attention to theme in the essay. Then Matthew showed them the final draft with his revisions and a higher score.

Matthew shared work from his notebooks for reading, writing, math and social studies. He pulled up his grades on a school laptop. He told them he wants to write more about what he's reading to improve his writing skills and to help him understand books better.

The conversation provided more details than Sonia Clemente usually hears from her son at home when she asks. She often hears a short, "I'm OK," or "Good."

"I like it more," Sonia Clemente said. "He's got the responsibility, letting me know himself how he's doing, how he's getting better."

The format was familiar because Matthew has participated in conferences since the third grade at Parson Hills Elementary. He still remembers how nervous he was in second grade when he had to find out what his grades were at his parent-teacher conference.

"I didn't show them all this about writing, reading," Matthew said. "The teacher would tell them."

The student-led conference is a better experience that also gives Matthew more practice speaking and presenting, he said.

Student voice

Schools in different parts of the country have experimented with involving students in conferences with their parents and teachers for years. Research reports on the topic were published in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Morledge was aware of the concept as a middle school principal in another district in the 1980s, but educators then lacked a clear purpose for involving students.

"I don't think we really understood student voice," Morledge said. "I don't think we realized how far we could empower them."

The practice varies in other Northwest Arkansas districts.

At Butterfield Trail Elementary in Fayetteville, parent-teacher conferences will take place at the end of this month, said Principal Joey Folsom. The conferences generally do not include students, but teachers occasionally invite older students to attend and share their work with parents.

Lisa St. John, principal at Apple Glen Elementary in Bentonville, said the school does a variety of conferences. In first through fourth grades, educators expect some level of student participation, including students explaining a literacy and math goal to their parents, she said. The first conference this year is the third week of October.

In Springdale, overall feedback was positive after the first year of implementing the new format, Morledge said. School leaders are learning through experience and are doing more this year to inform parents they can still schedule meetings with teachers without their child present, she said.

"Parents were amazed at what their kids knew and what they could communicate," Morledge said. "Kids can really take hold of their goals and work at them. Maybe we have not been thinking about how mature our kids really can be."

NW News on 10/04/2015

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