In which a first-year teacher survives her first Parent Teacher Conferences!

Well, we did it. After two 12 to 13 hour days, parent-teacher conferences are done. OK, technically I had a few no-shows, so I should be wrapping it up after school next week, but still, Whew! I learned a few things. Don't forget to let the office know when your own daughters' conferences are, so rescheduled appointments don't get piled up at all the wrong times. Block out a dinner break. And just plain go more quickly. I went a long way past the allotted times, partly due to folks arriving late in the middle of the day, which snowballed into everything running late after that, and partly due to me wanting to explain every last item on the report cards to the parents. Granted, my speech got quicker and more precise as I went along, and I got good at writing key benchmark goals upside down as we sat across the table from each other, but still... shorter and sweeter would have been good.
More pertinent to the children's actual education: in an effort to include positive feedback for every child I may have ended up sugar coating the news in some cases. I had our building's instructional coach sitting in with me for a couple of conferences, and when the parents left she seemed amazed at how they didn't register that so many "needs improvement" marks really means their child isn't up to par.
Good news: after going through each report card in detail (after, of course, having created each one less than a week ago) I have a good idea of where the class stands, what skills are commonly lacking, and what I need to emphasize. In addition to the daily routines that are already in place for phonemic awareness and letter recognition, I'm going to have to set up small groups to work with a paraprofessional regularly to drill on letters and numbers. And colors and shapes in some cases. Sheesh. If the kids with the lowest skills would just participate, I think we'd see some growth.
More brainstorming will ensue. In the meantime, I have a three day weekend and I intend to only spend it with my family! There's storytime at the library to take the three year old to, some area rugs to haul upstairs in the interest of warming up the cold cold loft, maybe some real cooking to do... Sounds pretty good!