Chabad Girl’s Academy Reinvents Parent-Teacher Conferences

Photos: Shimi Kutner/COLlive

PTA has always been a wonderful way to check in on a student’s progress with parents. The issue is, they lack one key element: student engagement. For students to be truly invested in their own learning, they need to be involved in conversations about their strengths, weaknesses and goals.

At Chabad Girls Academy, this issue translated into a solution: student guided PTA. The students run the conferences, informing their parents about how they’re doing and what their goals are going forward.

When students guide the parent-teacher conference, they take ownership of their learning. To prepare for PTA, every student put together a binder with a sample of their work in all subjects and personal reflection sheets, rating their skill sets and assessing how they are growing as students. Most importantly, they decided what needs review and more work on their end.

At PTA, each student sat with their parents and a teacher. They proudly took their parents through their work and set strong and realistic goals for the remainder of the year. Parents and teachers collaborated to support the students who in turn felt heard and understood – they came out as the real stars of the show!

With full encouragement from their parents and everyone on the same page, the students left empowered. Parents saw their kids in a new light and teachers saw insight to the parent-child relationships. That is our goal at CGA! It was a spectacular outcome and successful event.

Parent (Statement:)
“My daughter had the opportunity to review her work and accomplishments in an organized, confident way. It was so nice for her to sit at a table with her mentoring teacher and parents and to not only be involved in the discussion but the center of it, leading it and owning her hard work and success. This is a very innovative way to lead a PTA meeting and other schools should follow CGA’s example,” said Sara Spielman, parent of a sixth grade student at CGA.”