Back-to-School Night Blues

It’s Back-to-School Night season and that means frustration for many parents. I’ve attended approximately 22 Back-to-School Nights as a teacher and I will sit in my 11th one as a parent this week. For the teachers, it is an exhausting night. We are “on” all day with our students and then must return to be “on” for parents. It makes for one exhausting day, and a rough morning the next day. But, it’s one night. It’s often the only face-to-face contact we have with parents. So, it can be our only chance to connect with the families of our students. So why don’t schools make sure parents feel welcome?

My parent friends often dread Back-to-School Night though they want to meet the teacher(s) and support their kids’ education. These parents generally are happy with their kids’ school. But, the Back-to-School Night can sometimes be unnecessarily difficult for parents.

• Students aren’t allowed to attend Back-to-School Night, but the schools don’t offer any childcare. This is an insurmountable hurdle for many single parents of elementary school children. It is also promatic for many other families in which one parent works the night shift. I know there are liability, staffing, and other issues. But, certainly some schools have found a way to remedy this haven’t they?
• Physically navigating the campus can be really tough, especially for parents of high school students. At my son’s school our “passing period” at Back-to-School Night is five minutes. His school is huge–over 56 acres. I jogged from his drama class on one end of campus to the gym for PE last year and was still late. I arrived panting and sweaty and missed the first couple of mintues of the presentation. I’m not sure administration is always aware of the parent experience. Sometimes they do know notice, but choose not to adjust. A teacher friend of mine once told me about an administrator who commented in a school-wide email it would be fun to watch parents “stumble around in the dark” at Back-to-School Night. Clearly this person has no business working in a school.

And, it’s not just Back-to-School Night. My son’s elementary school also held Open House in the spring. This was a more casual event in which parents could browse the classroom, look over their student’s work, and maybe even chat with the teacher for a few minutes. Kids were encouraged to attend so they would be able to take the lead and show parents around. It was a pleasant evening. That is until my son’s school decided to change Open House to Portfolio Day and move it from the evening to 9:00 am. This meant that my husband and I had to decide who would take a half-day off of work to browse the classroom for 10 minutes. What an insult to working parents. And, let’s face it, few dads came. Like it or not, in many two-parent working families, men make more money than women and may not have the flexibility to take time off for Portfolio Day. I understand that the teachers voted to move the event in order to avoid having another night event. And, again I know how exhausting these days are. But, to me it sent a very clear message that parent involvement was not very important.

Many schools have sign-in sheets at Back-to-School Night. Teachers use these to gather the names of parents who attend. For what purpose, I’m not exactly sure–to know which parents “care enough” to attend. That’s a dangerous assumption. To gather contact information? That should be in the system used for attendance, grades, and emergencies. To give extra credit to students? At a school where I previously worked, teachers were directed to tally the number of adults in attendance each period and submit those numbers in to the office the following morning. I always wondered what happened to those attendance records. Did anyone track parent/family attendance? At some point, I learned they were thown away. So, I stopped turning them in. But, really, shouldn’t schools be curious about just how many parents are coming to Back-to-School Night? And, if attendance is poor, shouldn’t administration ask why . . . and more importantly strategize how to get more parents to come?