Conflicts between parents and teachers are examined in chapter 8. Chapter 9 considers unsuccessful conferences and conferences without planning agendas. The final chapter promotes the development of partnerships between parents and teachers. Many of the issues raised in the 10 chapters are illustrated with vignette of a conference dealing with a discipline problem, a set of role-playing activities, and a list of suggestions for facilitating conflict resolution. A 68 item bibliography and a 31 item resource list are provided.
Teachers can follow several guidelines for conducting productive parent teacher conferences.
To prepare for the conference, teachers can anticipate questions that parents might ask. Teachers should recognize that some parents have time constraints that limit their ability to come to school for a conference. In these cases, teachers can use the telephone or suggest a variety of alternative meeting times and places. A self-inventory that parents can use before and after the conference is included. The full-text database of ERIC Digests are accessible from the AskERIC Virtual Library.