WMS Caregiver Conferences

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Caregiver Conferences at WMS are coming up, and we have all the information about it for you here.

But first - a quick announcement about the Watertown Drama Club - the first informational meeting will be this Friday after school in the auditorium! The meeting lasts about an hour, and there will be.a late bus home at 3:45pm.

Caregiver conferences will be on:

Thursday, October 19, 2023

• 12:15 -2:15 pm, Virtual (or in-person)
  
• 5:00 - 7:00 pm, In-person (or virtual)
  

• 12:15 - 2:15 pm, In-person (or virtual)
  
• 5:00 - 7:00 pm, Virtual (or in-person)
  

Students' advisors have been reaching out individually to families to schedule conferences. We will have interpretation in all of our home languages available for these conferences. If you have not heard from your child's advisor yet, you can see who the advisor is in PowerSchool and find their email address on our school website to reach out to them.

Caregiver Conferences will be done in pairs/trios of advisors this year, with at least one of the teachers being a teacher on cluster. Conferences will be about 15 minutes long, and are a time to hear (from your child) about their successes, their challenges, and their goals this year. There will also be a time for teachers to share their updates, and for caregivers to share their questions or thoughts about your student’s progress, work habits, and reflections. This school-wide format is intended to helps us at school partner with you at home to support the every day learning of your child.

Here is a link to all teachers' zoom rooms for the conferences once they are scheduled: Watertown Middle School Fall Conference Zoom Links 23-24.

With our school's intentional shift towards more equitable grading practices, we hope to use PowerSchool as a communication portal with students and caregivers about how a student is doing on their mastery of grade level standards through their grades. We are striving for our grades to be accurate, bias free, and motivational for students. This means that we give feedback through grades and/or comments, and that we cultivate a growth mindset about that feedback since there are also opportunities to demonstrate re-mastery if needed. With midterm comments being shared with families the week before conferences, we hope to be intentional about the time we have together in person with a caregiver, student, and advisor/teacher to hear collectively about successes, challenges, and goals.

Here are some slides that you can use to understand how to use Power School. Students will be reviewing these slides today during advisory. We encourage families to review them too, and to fill out the form below with any questions.

How to Read PowerSchool Slides

How To Read PowerSchool Questions Form

We look forward to see you at Caregiver Conferences!

With gratitude,

Jennifer Chen Fein

Principal

Watertown Middle School

Watertown Public Schools