Parent Teacher Conferences 2019

By Jojo Beiza, Staff Writer

On Oct. 24, parents roamed around Niles West, going from classroom to classroom as they met up with the teachers who have been teaching their children for the 2019-2020 school year.

With parent teacher conferences commencing at 3:45 PM, students had shortened periods along with an early dismissal at 2:11 PM prior to the event starting. Ending at 8pm, many parents and guardians had a little bit over four hours to catch up on how their child was doing three months into the school year.

Senior Veronika Adamczyk , member of the National Honor Society, volunteered for the after school event.

“I enjoyed my time volunteering at parent teacher conference. Since I am a member of the National Honor Society, I do need volunteer hours. I decided to volunteer at conferences just because it seemed to be the most interactive, and it was,” said Adamczyk. “Throughout the entire night, it was such a gratifying experience. I got to meet so many different people, even if it was just for 30 seconds or even a five minute conversation, it was still such a new experience to me. I would definitely recommend any juniors or underclassman to volunteer in the next years to come because it is a good learning experience.”

One of the many that Adamczyk met were Gloria and Jim Iverson.

“Our son wants to be an engineer for his life, and it is because of this program here, and that is obviously super important,” Iverson said. “The teachers are all super professional and super prepared, they have all of what they are gonna say already prepared. [F]ive minutes seems like a short amount of time, but when the teachers have all the talking points, it is more than enough time.”

Another National Honor Society member, senior Isabella Saldana, was also at conferences volunteering. Although she agrees with Adamczyk, Saldana also believes that volunteering at parent teacher conference was a good choice for her pick of hours for the honors society.

“I had a great time volunteering Thursday, it was a long night but it was so worth the time and effort. I was with my friends Julia Ruth and Caroline Schapman, so time went by a bit quicker just because they were there to chit chat with,” Saldana said. “I think that this was a good choice for volunteer hours for NHS because it actually took place in school and had to do with Niles West. It also gave many of us a chance to work with other members in the society, so it was really nice to get familiar with a couple of other faces. Seeing teachers outside of their usual teaching mode was really a different perspective than what most of the students are used to, so that was also another highlight of the night.”

Throughout the night, many slots were filled with parents meeting up for a personal one on one meeting with the teachers. With everything running smoothly, all comments on parent teacher conferences for the night were all left on a positive note.