I hate parent-teacher conferences

My school requires us to have parent-teacher conferences each semester. We had them last week. I teach 9th grade English.<br><br>I get it, some parents like them, some kids have trouble articulating to their parents what's going on in class, lots of kids don't communicate with their parents in the first place.<br><br>I start with a Powerpoint, which I also offer to email a copy of to parents, and then we discuss. The Powerpoint includes: grade, whether the student has missing work, what they have done well on in class, what they need to work on, upcoming assignments, how they can improve their grade, and pictures of exemplar assignments. I also have all of the student's work sitting on a nearby table, so a parent can sift through them.<br><br>Last week, I had 6 parents that did not show up to conferences (the consequences for this are that the kid has a detention). I had one parent that showed up on the wrong day, which is an honest mistake, so I saw her today. I had one parent that asked if we could just do it over the phone.<br><br>Of the parents that did show up, most of them didn't want the Powerpoint emailed to them. One parent was bothered that their kid doesn't have a 100%. One was irritated that I didn't let her kid do extra credit. One was irritated that I'm not letting her daughter redo a project she did very poorly on (our policy: projects cannot be redone. Assignments that are shorter and worth less can be redone, but projects are too big). One parent told me that "you're not a very good teacher if you're telling me my kid is doing poorly in your class". One parent asked me if I was "prepared to teach this class" and if "I was prepared to teach her kid". One parent was angry that their kid doesn't quote quote "like me", but they still have a good grade and participate actively in class discussions. One parent talked about how I shouldn't be requiring juniors and seniors to keep their phones put away during class; I do not teach juniors and seniors.<br><br>Only two sets of parents had questions about how their kids were doing and were receptive to what I had to say.