Our Daughter is a budding artist and writer. She attended our local Catholic school up through 8th grade (they don't have a Catholic High School Near us.)
Each year she drew or painted a picture for each teacher and wrote a long letter expressing all the things she liked about the teacher and what she learned in class. (She is an excellent student ranked in the top 5 every year.)
As she got older of course the art got better as well as the writing. Each year every one of her teachers would write a long letter back thanking her for her gifts and thanking her for helping out in class (she would help a couple of students in her classes that had learning disabilities)
Last year she entered public school and at the end of the year did the same thing. Her art work is very good now. (she has taken blue ribbons in several local art shows) out of the seven teacher she gave gifts to last year only one wrote her a letter back (He is the pariah of the school, a conservative who pays his union dues under protest (its the rules here he can't get out of it).
My good friend works as Janitor at the school and found two of her pictures in the trash. There are not scribbles but intricate portraits worked in acrylics on canvas one of which won 1st place in a local art show. He brought them to me and I told him I would need to hide them because it would break her heart to know two of her teacher just threw the pictures away. He asked if he could keep them and now they are proudly displayed in his music room in nice frames.
Does anyone here on Free Republic think that having a parent-teacher conference with any of these so-called "teachers" would be worthwhile?
Answer: COMPLETE **WASTE** OF TIME!!! ( Yes, I am shouting.)