Teach42

Today, at 9:00 AM, parents will be able to begin registering for their conferences online.  It always makes for a hectic week for me, but on the whole it is an incredible improvement over the traditional process.  Years ago, before we moved to this system, parents would run around from sheet to sheet trying to physically sign up for conferences.  Often, parents would be at the school for an entire day due to scheduling issues.  Middle school teachers were only availabe on a drop in basis, so they never knew how many parents would be coming to see them, nor when they would be arriving.  It was a harrowing experience for many who were involved.

A few years ago Graphtech, a local technology company that we’ve done quite a business, offered up a way to do conferences online.  PTConferencemaker allows parents to go to a web site, identify which teachers they’d like to meet with and what day & time works best for them.  Then, the computer takes over and tries to create the best schedule possible for them.  It’s a fantastic system that has greatly improved the conference process.  Of course, there are always a few issues that need to be taken care of by hand, so you have all the tools that you might need to take care of them.  While they haven’t gone national yet, they are working on it.  If you’re in the greater Chicago area, I highly suggest you check them out.

If you’re a parent of the day school, you can log on to schedule your conferences now!  If you need any help with the system, you can contact Graphtech at 847-374-1600 x139.  If you can’t find your login information, you can email me at technology@bzaeds.org.

Update: It’s now one hour into the registration process.  There was one  glitch in the system that was corrected within 30 minutes of it being discovered.  Oh, and 262 conferences have already been registered.

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