By Patrick Boyle
© The Gazette Newspapers
March 16, 2001

It's March, meaning that school has been in session for seven months now and this is a fair question: If you and one of your child's teachers were alone in an elevator, would you know who the other person was?

For many of us, the elevator companion may as well be the mayor of Tuscaloosa. The people we put in charge of our children's brains every day are often less familiar to us that the local convenience store clerk, especially if: A. You are a father, B. Your child is past grade school, or C. Your child isn't struggling academically or doing anything disruptive, like shutting down the schools by calling in a snow threat.

A few weeks ago, Maryland kids literally handed their parents the best excuse for remaining strangers to their teachers: report cards. The A's, Bs', S's and U's are presented as precise measures of academic and social development; actually, they're vague indicators, but great pacifiers. As long as these reports bear the right letters, we figure there's no need to actually go see those people whom we pay to teach and judge our children.

But educators think the letter grades are inadequate to tell us how are kids are doing; to get the full story, they think we should go see them.

"The best thing that can happen is that grades are an opportunity for parents and teachers to talk," says Bruce Katz, director of curriculum and instruction for Prince George's County schools. "Don't only go in and talk to them when you get grades you're not satisfied with."

Okay, you're groaning. You're busy, you'd have to take time off from work during the day and who's going to watch the little one at home?

My wife and I faced those dilemmas when we recently scheduled a meeting with our eighth graders' teachers. Alyssa had just brought home an honor roll report card, and us going to see her teachers made as much sense to her as consulting her doctor because she's feeling well.

But the letter grades tell us nothing about her strengths and struggles in each subject. What good and bad work habits do her teachers see? Is she acing multiple choice but laboring on essays? Does she speak up when she doesn't understand? Does her social life in school affect her work there? Any budding problems for us to watch out for? (Among the top teacher gripes: parents who get in touch only after their child's grades plummet like dot-com stock.)

"A fifteen minute conference between you and those teachers can give you a world of information," says John Nori, a former Montgomery County middle and high school principal, now assistant director at the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

I can't reveal what we found out in our conference, because our daughter would try to have us adopted, and I would miss the dog. But here's some of what we got out of it : The teachers now know more about us and our child, which can only help them understand and work with her. I have a more thorough picture of how she approaches school work, including different approaches in different classes. When she talks about her teachers at home, I can relate better now, and if a problem arises, it will be easier for me to call or write to a teacher. And teachers say that when they've met a parent, it's easier to pick up the phone and say, "I'm a little concerned about something."

In short, nothing beats face time. It works wonders in business, in romance, in neighborly relations - and in schools.

Too bad the schools don't help more. Schools in this area schedule face-to-face parent/teacher nights in grade school, but tend to stop them in middle school. We're told we can arrange individual meetings during the day - leaving parents to coordinate schedules with teachers and take off from work. Is anyone surprised that parent/teacher meetings drop off at this point?

The president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, Richard Barbacang, says that in his home school district of Lancaster, Pa., teachers in all grades schedule meetings with parents when the first report cards come out in the fall, and again in the spring. The schools schedule half days and night meetings to make it work.

Ultimately, however, it's up to us to make sure we're not strangers to our children's teachers. Dads must be especially careful not to succumb to the convenience of letting our spouses do the visit and filling us in. In two-parent households, according to the National Center on Education Statistics, mothers are twice as likely as fathers to be highly involved with their children's schools. Among noncustodial dads, just 31 percent ever participate in any school activity.

Here's the bonus: Going to see your child's teachers shows him that you and the school are partners in his education, and that you care enough about his education to be inconvenienced. For a once-a-year effort, that's a pretty good payoff.