Parents need to be involved in their child’s education. Research confirms that your involvement in your child’s education is essential to your child’s academic success. Your involvement can improve your child’s achievement, attitudes towards learning, and self-esteem. One way to be an involved parent is to take advantage of your opportunities to visit and speak with school staff. Find out when these opportunities will occur during the school year and put them on your calendar. Common opportunities include parent conferences, open house meetings, and back-to-school meetings. Your child’s school may have different or additional opportunities. Do you know what they are? If not, find out and put them on your calendar.

As a teacher, much thought and planning go into each parent meeting. Parents are provided with a great deal of information about their children at these meetings. I have taken some of the common topics presented to parents at conferences etc., and turned these topics into questions. You can use the following questions as a beginning guide when you plan to meet with your child’s teacher. Planning ahead can help you gain a more comprehensive overview of your child’s performance at school.

Parent Conference Questions for Parents to Ask their Child’s Teacher: The following topics are typically covered at meetings.

(Before you begin to review the questions below, make your own list of questions. What do you want to know about your child’s performance? You can add any of the following, which may apply to your child’s education.)

1. What are my child’s strengths? Are there areas in which my child is excelling? What is he/she doing well? How can I support these strengths at home?

2. Are there areas where my child is struggling? How can I help improve these areas at home? 

3. What are your(the teacher’s) goals for my child? Have goals been written for my child? May I have a copy? If your child has a special need and there is no goal written to address that need, ask why not. You can take the conference time to work together to write a goal.

4. If your child has an individualized special education plan, you can ask: What percentage of the day will my child be removed from the general classroom?

5. What is the curriculum in each subject? You should be given access to all curriculums either online or provided with a hard copy. 

6. How does the school collect data to measure students’ progress? How do you assess my child in the classroom? How often do you assess my student? How do you show my child’s progress? 

7. What kind of progress should I expect to see? Again, you should be given specific information. 

8. How and when do you update my child’s present level of performance? How is my child’s current level of performance reported to me? 

9. Are there any accommodations made for my child’s education? How were they made? Why were they made? Parents should be informed and be involved in the making of any accommodation made for their child.  

10. What is my child’s daily schedule? If your child receives special services, you should know when and where the services occur. For example, are the services a pull-out program or in class program? May I have a copy of my child’s service logs? Parents can review the logs kept by teachers and others providing special services. Logs give you the date, time, and place where the services were provided to your child.

11. Is my child on track to be promoted to the next grade, on track for graduation, etc.?

12. Is my child working on a modified curriculum? If so, how has the curriculum been modified, and what can be done to get my child on track?

Parents, if you don’t understand something, ask for more explanation. Teachers are there to help and work together with you and your child.