open school night

My kids had open school night last week and Im curious to hear how other schools do it. Last year I had only one son in Kindergarten so it was no big deal. This year I have my daughter in Kindergarten and my son in First grade, next year Ill have K, 1st and 2nd grade. The school that they are at has a new principal and she wanted to keep it the way they have done it in the previous years. For 45 minutes the parents of kids in K-2 meet with the teacher and she speaks about the school day and what will go in in the year. You get to see the class and sign up for conferences and other parent things. Then the principal spoke and then the parents of kids in grades 3-5 went to the classrooms to see the teachers. My husband and I split up this year and he went to kindergarten and I went to first grade. Next year Im going to have a problem unless they get the same teachers as my other kids. I understand that Im not the only one with other kids in other grades. Growing up I thought that they would give each grade 15 minutes or so and that allowed parents to go see each classroom. Im just wondering how it is done in other schools.
Thanks so much!

open school night

They break it up into 4 sessions basically. From 6-7 the k-2 teachers do two identical half hour sessions. Then from 7-8 the 3-5 teachers do two identical half hour sessions. You'd still have an issue having kids in k,1,2 all the same year but in our school chances are you'll have at least one repeat teacher which I guess would help.

Re: open school night

Our district each grade k-6 has a different time slot. K-2 is a separate school so that is one night. then 3-6 is a different night.

open school night

Our open school night was from 4:30-6:30. Teachers did 1/2 sessions for whichever parents show up. So if you have one in K and another in 1st, at 4:30 you can see the K teacher and at 5:15 you can go to the 1st grade teacher.

Re: open school night

Re: open school night

Re: open school night

Ours is done similarly to original poster. All K-2 is during a certain time and all 3-5 is during a certain time. We only have 2 so we can split up. Friends who have have more just stop in introduced themselves, grabbed paperwork and moved on.

Re: open school night

open school night

ours breaks it up into sessions. from 7-7:30 is a general "meeting" where the principal talks, the PTA president gets up and tries to get you to join- that kind of stuff. then its like 7:45-8 is first session then 8-8:15 is second session and 8:15 to 8:30 is third session. so the parents go around to their kids classrooms, and the teacher talks to whoever is there for that session. so parents can go to their older kids teacher the first session, then the younger kids teacher the second session or whatever. and don't have to split up. 15 minutes seems short, but they stress that its not conferences- its basically just to see your kids classroom and get an general idea of the rules and curriculum for the year... it works out well.

Re: open school night

Very similar to how our school does it.
Lots of parents get a babysitter and then split up if they have multiple kids at the same time. My hubby was working last year, so I had a K and 2nd graded. I split up the time (went to one and then went to another for each about 20 minutes).

Honestly, it’s not as key as the 1:1 parent teacher.

Re: open school night

Our district has a different night for each grade. That way if you have more than one kid, both parents can go to everything if they want. Usually it is from 6-8pm or 7-9pm or something like that.

open school night

My dd's school does it the same way. K-2 first, principal speech/meet the gym/music/art teachers, 3-5 last. If I had your situation, I would probably send a note to each teacher letting them know the situation, and that you might have to miss meeting them. At least one them might offer to meet you at a different time, and they would all probably be happy to send home any paperwork you might miss out on.