Abstract

Public education leaders continue to embrace new initiatives to improve student achievement, promote college readiness, and increase graduation rates. One of the critical pieces of working towards student success is through the parent-school partnership. While there are many methods to fostering the parent-teacher connection, this research focuses on the role of the parent-teacher conference through a participatory action research study. The effectiveness of hosting the parent-teacher conference using a virtual format via videoconference was explored as a way to address the challenges of reaching unengaged parents of sixth grade students. Barriers such as schedules, weather, work commitments, and poor perceptions of the school (among other factors) prevent some parents from participating in the traditional parent-teacher conferences. The findings revealed that parents and teachers perceived the virtual parent-teacher conference as an effective and positive method to hosting conferences.