Parent - Teacher Conferences

A few times a school year we have the chance to go to our school and hear how our kids from the shelter are doing. So perhaps it's a bit of a misnomer to call them parent - teacher conferences because our kids do not have their parents in their lives. Instead, the children's house parents from the homes at the shelter and all of our staff gather together to hear our teachers share about how the kids are doing. It can get to be a bit of a marathon at times, but that's unavoidable. We usually are hearing one-by-one how 50 of our kids are doing, so yesterday it took about 3 1/2 hours to hear about their progress! Even with that length of time, we don't get to hear about each child for very long.

Our teachers always do a great job of putting together narrative reports that really give a good picture of how each child is doing. It's hard work and they make them interesting, noting the strengths of each child and perhaps where they need improvement or extra help.

It is so encouraging to hear that each of our kids is making progress - some excelling, some faster than others, but at least they are all moving in the right direction. It is just amazing to hear about their progress when you are aware of the situations the kids have come out of. Many of the kids did not start school on time and missed several years. Others started, then stopped, started, then stopped, started, then stopped do to their unstable home situations. Because of this, most of the kids end up playing catch-up for the rest of their academic careers. And even after many of these children get to our shelter and get enrolled in school, it may take them two or three years before they really start to get any "traction" and start to make steady progress.

It is hard, hard work being a good teacher in our school and seeing that the needs of each individual child are being met because the needs are so many and so varied. I think our teachers are heroes and great role models for our kids. And it's also hard, hard work being a child who is behind in school or with some learning difficulties to be able to cope up and catch up. In our school it takes a lot of hard work all around!