High School Conferences Put Teacher Autonomy in Question

Adam Patric Miller says high school parent-teacher conferences exhaust teachers and limit the independence students need to develop. In a Chicago Tribune commentary, he argues schools should end routine conferences for older students but keep meetings available when parents have a specific concern.

Miller writes that his school scheduled conferences for the week after the quarter ended, as early college-application deadlines approached. The period, he says, felt stressful. One student sobbed outside his office after missing a writing conference about a personal statement. Miller rescheduled the meeting for the following week and reminded the student there were still weeks to revise the nearly finished statement before the Nov. 1 deadline.

Student responsibility

Miller says parent-teacher conferences make developmental sense in early grades, but not in high school. Most high school students can drive, he writes, and many seniors can vote. Students should start handling academic concerns themselves before they face college professors or bosses.

Grades already tell parents about a student’s progress, or lack of it, Miller writes. Parents can email teachers with concerns and schedule a meeting whenever a genuine issue arises. He advises parents not to book a conference if their child has an A or B, calling it a “victory lap conference.” If parents worry about learning, he recommends asking their child first what could be done; they should contact the teacher if the student doesn’t know.

A demanding schedule for teachers

Miller describes five hours of virtual 10-minute appointments after school and on Tuesday, followed by in-person meetings with parents until 7:30 p.m. Faculty members stay in the building after a full teaching day, he says, then teach again the next day exhausted. Teachers have also had a grading day while students stayed home, even though conferences supposedly aren’t about grades.

Grades often dominate the meetings, in Miller’s view. He calls teaching exhausting work and conference week one of high school’s most “inhumane administrative imperatives.” Teachers call in sick after the week, he says, and have depleted immune systems. Those are Miller’s descriptions of the schedule’s demands and effects.

Miller argues that conferences also serve a public-relations purpose. Per-pupil spending and taxes are high, he says, and meetings give taxpayers face time with teachers who are “presentable, articulate.” Those interactions can reassure parents that buying a home in the school community was a wise investment, in his account.

Grades, pressure and decision-making

Miller recounts meetings that turned into power plays over grades. While his officemate explained an essay grade, one parent asked, “Do you know I’ve published six books?” Miller also recalls teaching honors freshman English in a suburb of Ohio, where parents lined a hallway to meet a teacher who wasn’t giving A’s in the first quarter. One parent asked whether a low grade would make it impossible for a son to get into Johns Hopkins Medical School. Another asked, “Don’t you know the average IQ of students in your class is 130?”

Why don’t teachers collectively refuse the practice, Miller asks. Public-school teachers are the last people making decisions that affect their own well-being and students’ learning, he argues. He has taught high school for 25 years in three states, currently teaches in St. Louis and is the author of “A Greater Monster.” His column was published Oct. 15, 2026. It closes with the quotation, “If the fool would persist in his folly,” a poet wrote, “he would become wise,” followed by Miller’s description of the line as feeling like a teacher’s epitaph after a week of conferences.