Right before school starts, students want to relax and soak up the last day of summer. Students have less time to relax before school starts again since they have to go to back to school night . Spending 30 minutes to an hour talking to the teachers only for them to tell students and parents the same things is not fun. Most of the teachers also send syllabuses for parents to read through and see the rules of the class. So, going to back to school night just to hear the same thing over again seems like a huge waste of time, especially on a school night.
Students are already stressed out with the beginning of school on top of worrying about where classes are, getting to them on time and focusing on school work. Having to go to back to school night is pretty annoying when students would all rather be at home having more free time.
Teenagers like to go out and hangout with friends, play sports, or hangout with family. When that little bit of freedom teens have is taken away from them for something that is wasting our time, students liking school lessens even more. Most teenagers already don’t like school which makes it hard to find motivation to do homework/left over assignments.
“I don’t think it’s set up to be a valuable conversation. Teachers feel overwhelmed by having multiple families come up to them to talk to them in a short amount of time, and these teachers barely know half the students’ names yet.” – Father of Ana Sliger (freshman) Even parents are feeling sympathy for the teachers who have to meet these new students’ parents.
Teachers may feel stressed about back to school night as well. Teachers may feel stressed because of making good impressions with students, and creating good relationships with new students. Teachers have so many students’ names to learn across multiple periods with classes full of 20+ students.
“I think back to school night is a waste of time because it’s just another thing parents and students feel obligated to do when all it really is, is teachers explaining the basics over again. I would thing of it as less of a waste of time if we could talk about things that are more relevant to the class.” -Gavin Sedgwick (freshman)
If back to school night was set up to be more of a conversation for the students and the parents, then it could be more valuable. Students would more likely want to attend back to school night if it was more of a productive conversations.
If we could learn more about what class will look like and more about what will be taught, it would be more useful. If teachers talked more about how the class is suitable for a student, then more students would be intrigued to go to back to school night. Students love learning things about teachers, like what college they went to, their family etc. Back to school night would be a better use of time if students and parents got more information from the teacher and could have one on one conversations with teachers.
