Published: October 01, 2009 08:53 pm      

Parent/teacher conferences in jeopardy

NA-FC won’t have them, other districts look for solutions

Changes at the state level are putting parent/teacher conferences in jeopardy for some school districts and leaving others looking for creative solutions.

This week, New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. sent a letter home to parents letting them know they will not have conferences this year like they have in years past.

The changes have to do with Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, who announced earlier this year that half days would no longer count toward the required 180 instructional days for schools in the state.

Previously, schools either had half days or let students out for the day to make up for the extra working hours for teachers.

“It really wasn’t our decision. It was the state’s decision,” said Bill Briscoe, assistant to the superintendent at NA-FC.

He said the teachers are already contracted for a specific amount of days, which prevents them from staying for the conferences, unless the hours they work are subtracted from another day or they receive additional pay. Briscoe said paying for substitutes or paying teachers to work the additional hours is not possible for the district, which is in the process of finding ways to cut back.

However, Briscoe said he will meet with the teachers’ association within the next week to see if they can come up with a solution that works for everyone.

“It’s very important for teachers and parents. I think it’s essential for both parties to sit down and talk about their children,” he said.

He said meanwhile parents should feel free to initiate that discussion with their children’s teachers even outside of conference time.

Clarksville Community School Corp. is willing to fork out the additional money to keep conferences going, according to Interim Superintendent Kim Knott.

She said the teachers’ association started brainstorming over the summer to come up with a solution to the state’s changes. That solution is to count the hours teachers work outside their contracted day and when those add up to 300, they get an additional paid day off. Once they receive half of that, they can get a half day. Knott said teachers may also save up those hours until the end of the year, when money for that time will be put into their retirement accounts.

“We don’t have to pay all that out immediately,” Knott said. “It buys us some time.”

This is a non-issue for those at West Clark Community Schools, where they have 181 student days and 185 teacher days worked into the calendar, according to Superintendent Monty Schneider.

He said school will be out on Oct. 14 for elementary students for conferences all day. Conferences for all grade levels will be on Oct. 13 and Oct. 14 in the evening. Schneider said students missing that one day will still have the required 180 school days for the year.

“The whole thing did not effect us at all. We didn’t have to change anything and I’m glad, because I think [parent/teacher conferences are] very important.”

Greater Clark County Schools will still have conferences too, according to Amy Schellenberg, executive director for professional development and curriculum. She said the district took one of the five teacher/professional development days that are in addition to the instructional days and split that, so that there can be conferences on two evenings throughout the school year.