MCHS decided this year to replace parent/teacher conferences and a teacher institute day with two student attendance days. Frustration rose within not only by some staff and students, but also MCHS families.
“I’m upset about it because personally I liked it and I think everyone else did,” sophomore Leslie Franco Gomez said. “It gave us a nice break before Thanksgiving. Last year most of the students were in favor of the whole week off so I don’t really think it’s necessary for them to take it out. I would prefer if we had two extra days of school at the end of the year since in the middle of the school year you need a break but since you know school is about to end, two more days doesn’t seem too bad.”
While some teachers may be remorseful over the change, Ms. Cadence Baker, social studies, shared why the break may actually be beneficial for students.
“I understand why some people would’ve been frustrated that they had to come to school that Monday and Tuesday, but that would’ve been two extra days that students had to come at the end of the year. I don’t mind it since I would’ve had to be here either way,” Baker said.
As the school year schedule would’ve been affected, Ms. Kathleen Szwed, social studies, had a different preference.
“We already start so early in August, so I wouldn’t really want it to be any earlier,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t mind two days tacked on in May if we had the whole week off, but most teachers would rather teach the two days and not mess with the start or end date”
If the student body and the staff had been so upset about it, what brought them to change the school schedule?
“Last year on average, our teachers had 5.4 conferences out of a maximum 36 conferences in the time allotted,” according to a statement by MCHS sent out to parents, students and staff over email. “Of the 2,429 unique families at MCHS, only 226 families scheduled one or more conferences.”
In exchange to removing parent-teacher conferences completely, the school proposed an alternative in the same email.
“Our teachers have been reaching out to parents/guardians throughout this semester regarding students who have been struggling in school.” A successful method, resulting in less D’s and F’s in students compared to the years prior. “We encourage you to schedule a meeting with your student’s teachers if you find it beneficial and/or necessary. These meetings can be done virtually or in-person.”
For students, this may seem like a big change; however, MCHS is going back into the past with their old school year schedule where the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving break are student attendance days. Having students in school on those days was common until just a few years ago.
“After a couple years, the teachers realized that wasn’t very helpful to do parent/teacher conferences so late in the school year, especially for only semester long classes that when you do come back from parent/teacher conferences there would only be a few weeks left, which isn’t a lot of time for students to make changes and better their grade,” Baker said. “We realized we should’ve already been contacting and talking to the parents if the students were really struggling that bad.”
