By Lilah Nick
Quarter 3 ended on March 11th, and the school year is quickly coming to a close. Thus, Student Led Conferences (SLCs) arrived on April 4th. SLCs are conferences with students, advisors, and parents. The purpose of them is for students to talk about all of their classes with their parents and advisors and then come up with ways for them to improve. But are they really necessary?
Most teachers and parents will argue that SLCs are good because you work together as a team, there is communication and transparency, and it allows the student to be in charge of the conversation. For certain families, there isn’t much communication about grades, so SLCs might be a good idea for them.
Personally, I don’t really like the SLCs. I have never liked them. You get a script, fill in the blanks, and talk to your parents and advisor about it. I’ve always found that most people fake their way through the scripts and put minimal effort into them. For example, there’s the value question. The script asks, “Which of the PVS values am I exhibiting regularly? How?” In my personal experience and that of my friends, we all fake this question the most. I’ll usually just select the value “Inquiry and Exploration.” I say I exhibit the value regularly in that I “ask questions” and I’m “interested” in my classes. It’s one of the easiest answers that we can just slap on the page.
My parents are always looking at My Backpack and checking my grades. If I have a low grade, they’ll ask for me to get it up. I don’t find SLCs necessary for me, but for other students whose parents don’t check their grades, it might be.
Let’s ask around: How do you feel about SLCs?
“It’s half an hour of my life wasted.”
Sienna Price, 8th Grade
“I hate SLCs. There is no point to me when I can just talk to my parents on my own.”
Alyna Llapitan, Sophomore
“My mom doesn’t check my grades. So, if that report card comes back with anything other than what I promised, it’s game over.”
Jessica Denyer, Senior
”I always think it’s good when parents, teachers, and students work together as a team.”
Ms. Zachik, Teacher
For better or for worse, Quarter 4 has no SLC. In fact, we have only 27 school days remaining in the 2021-22 year. But, get ready; SLCs return in only six months . . . .
SLCs are interesting. On the one hand, as a student, you are in control. You get to hear what parents and advisors say about you. If you enjoy spending 30 minutes with an advisor and your parent, great! But I personally found the scripts for SLCs unhelpful and systematic. If you’re going to do SLCs, The time should be spent catering to your needs as a student and how your parents and teachers can help you, not with you reading a script.
But also, during much of my time at PVS, the SLCs were required. But before there was such a thing as SLCs, there were parent-teacher conferences, which people didn’t love because — from what I understand — all the parents were together and had to Move from teacher to teacher. However, the good thing was that these parent teacher conferences (I believe) were optional for parents, which I think makes a lot of sense. Parents who are concerned about or interested in what their child is doing at school CAN go meet with their teachers, but parents who want to leave their children’s education in their often-capable hands were not required to attend. If the student, the teacher, AND the parent don’t get much out of an SLC, it becomes a waste of everyone’s time.
The effectiveness of SLCs, like that of almost everything else, depends on the student and their individual needs. Parents and teachers are, obviously, free to request a meeting if such a situation becomes necessary.
Personally, I’m glad my days of SLCs are gone but I certainly do see the benefits, especially for younger kids learning to develop a voice.