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Show JPB JBlmh years that the parents of good students come faithfully to parent-teacher parent-teacher conferences but those of the poor or failing students rarely show up. To me that tells the story of why the child is not doing well in school. The parent's don't care. If they don't care then why should the child care. The same is true with those who go on to trade school or college. In most cases the kids have always been encouraged to further their education. educa-tion. Parents of the failing students probably don't suggest college and, in fact, may discourage any training after high school. Some don't feel that even high school is important. The kind of sad thing for me is that this year I do not have a child in elementary school for the first time in many years. At least that is one less school to visit but it surely increased things at the junior high where I have two students, each with seven classes, and that is a lot of teachers to visit in one day. So, I took my husband along to visit one child's teachers. It saved me a lot of work and gave him an opportunity to realize all the benefits of being a father. I think I will take my knitting next year to the junior high, though. By MARCELLA WALKER The time of year has come for parent-teacher conferences in the schools. This is a time every parent looks forward to with mixed feelings and students look forward to with trepidation. Of course, they do enjoy the day off from school. Then they spend the day wondering what the teachers are going to tell their parents. In elementary school parents are given an appointed time to meet with the child's teacher. One visit is all that is required for each child as they only have one teacher each. The worst that can happen is that the teacher has gotten behind schedule and you wait an hour past your appointment to get in. It never fails but the parent just ahead of you has a child with problems of a serious nature and they must all be ironed out in the parent-teacher conference. Or the parent must know in detail how the child is doing on each subject, offer excuses or brag a little, and this can go on for some time with the teacher casting distraught glances at the line of parents queing outside the door. Junior high school has seven periods a day, usually meaning a visit to seven different teachers. Most parents try to make it to the school early in the morning in hopes they can get through early and get home. No matter how early you go there is always a lot of people ahead of you. So, you walk around the media center, peering at people and trying to visit those teachers who have the shortest lines waiting. This goes on teacher after teacher and finally you come to the last one and the line here has now grown by 14 people and you take a deep breath, slide into line and say "Are you waiting for Miss ?" and the response is always, "Yes." and the wait begins. Did you bring your knitting? It turns out that in the afternoon it is not nearly so crowded at the junior high as it is in the morning but don't all you come in the afternoon next time. The nicest thing about waiting in line is you get to talk to a lot of acquaintances whom you haven't seen since the last parent-teacher conference and you also make some new friends each time. At the high school the lines are never as long as they are at the junior high. I don't think as many parents go to the conferences when their children are in high school and that is a shame. You usually get through faster at the high school but it is not as much fun because there are not so many to visit with. Teachers have told me over the |