I have been in contact with my powerful team members several times over the past two months. I have coordinated meetings and trainings, created flyers and PowerPoints, given advice on parent meetings, and helped teachers prepare materials to send home to parents. However, the most helpful information I have received has come from the feedback given by the Power Team staff members and the parents who attended the meetings.
After our September 22nd and 24th parent meetings, I sent a survey to the classroom teachers and the parents who attended. The feedback has been very helpful in assisting me in preparing for the next parent meetings in mid-January.
Overall, staff members felt the first parent meetings went well, but were disappointed in parent attendance. We had 28% of our parents attend from the 21 classrooms. 95/339 students were represented. Staff members also felt a little overwhelmed and rushed in preparing materials since I was unable to receive monetary assistance from my PIT Crew team (formerly PTO) until September 9th and then did not get orders delivered until September 18th. Also, most of the staff members want to have our first meeting EARLIER next year! So far, the current members are looking forward to the second meeting in mid-January and six other staff members say they would like to join next year!
Parents gave outstanding positive feedback overall, but a few wanted to be able to meet individually with the teacher after the meeting was over. They were glad there will be individual conferences in October and November. Many were glad for the chance to see where their child stands against other students and for the handouts and activities to use at home.
As a member of your Powerful Team, and a parent who sat in on the parent meetings, I am so proud of you! I know how hard you worked on preparing for the first round of conferences. You went above and beyond to prepare everything you could for teachers so they would have less to do. The format of the conferences was great. I hope word gets out about the benefit of that type of conference and more parents join in next time!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience with our "curriculum night." Some classes had all their students while I only had four parents show up. We prepared all this time and effort and I still had to meet with all the parents individually which did not save time. I love your idea of a survey. This provides great ideas for improvements or suggestions for future events. Maybe you could do another survey before your next event to see who might be able to attend? I wish there was an easier way to make nights like this without using our own money too! I hope you have a better turn out with your next meeting! :)
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