Student Opinion: Student-Teacher Conferences

Long lines, long meetings, big crowds… whew! North Shore's first student-teacher conferences day was quite the scene. But was it successful? I spoke to three students with different opinions to try and get a general idea of students' feelings on the matter. First, Ethan Monhian ‘25 had a positive experience, saying, “It really showed us how much the teachers here at NSHAHS are so involved in making sure that each of us will reach our fullest potential.” Aliza Reiss ‘26 agreed, “Going into it, I was a bit skeptical because it seems just pointless and progressive, but it actually turned out to be a very helpful and beneficial experience!” Of course, with any positive feedback, there’s plenty of negative feedback to go along with it.

Many students echoed the same criticism- “It was set up poorly.” Many agreed that some rooms had too many crowds, pushing, shoving, and bloodbath lines in a race to get to every teacher on the first day. A common sentiment was that next time, each room should have one to two teachers in it, instead of entire departments. However, Adina Kalter ‘26 had a different approach; “The meetings should have been in classrooms during class and everyone gets called up based on alphabetical order.” This declaration led to several discussions– the biggest one being privacy. Is the front of a classroom really the place for a private conversation?

Putting so many teachers and students in each room certainly ensured that nobody was eavesdropping, but it did lead to some lines moving incredibly fast, and some remarkably slow. My longest wait time was over forty minutes- for only seven people ahead of me! My shortest was about two minutes, for three people in front. Additionally, some lines were quite cut-throat. Despite the long waits and poor layout, I think most agree that the conferences were a great addition to the school. Next year, I think a much more spread out layout would greatly improve all the minor issues.