Lakewood teachers go extra miles for parent conferences

Park Lodge Elementary School in Lakewood took parent-teacher conferences on the road last week.

Instead of asking all parents to come to the school to meet in the traditional way, teachers went to parents at the Aladdin-Camelot Apartments, where about a third of Park Lodge’s 435 students live.

“We are trying to let parents know that they are part of our school community,” said Principal Synette Melluzzo.

That’s especially important because the apartment complex is new to Park Lodge this year after school redistricting.

Park Lodge is near Lakewood Town Center. The apartments are about three miles away, across Interstate 5. Construction of a new elementary school in the Clover Park School District sparked a re-drawing of attendance lines that shifted kids from the Aladdin-Camelot complex to Park Lodge.

On Wednesday, parents, teachers and kids met in a recreation room of the complex. Purple and green balloons marked the way for residents of the large complex, which has about 500 units.

Inside, teachers gathered around tables while parents and excited kids waited their turn.

Kindergarten teacher Annamarie Volz talked with Carolyne Waweru, mother of 6-year-old Marius, about how well her son is doing at school.

“This is an example of his writing,” Volz said, handing the boy’s mother a paper with a hand-drawn picture and a sentence about a horse. “He’s doing amazing. He did this all by himself.”

Marius loves reading, his mom said — in fact, he’s teaching his little sister, 4-year-old Madelyn.

“You know he’s learning and taking it in when he starts teaching someone else,” Volz said.

Before the conference was over, Volz asked Marius whether he had any questions. He told her he wants to learn the piano. Volz promised to let the music teacher know about his interest.

“He’s a learner,” Volz told Waweru. “He’s going to be very successful.”

Agueda Valera brought her two sons, fourth-grader Gabriel and second-grader Cristian, along with their baby brother, Aldair, to the teacher meetings.

Having the conference sessions near her home made it so much easier, especially with the baby, Valera said.

Nohelia Suce, the school’s family involvement coordinator, helped translate a conversation between Valera and fourth-grade teacher T.J. Serrianne. He explained how Gabriel is doing on tests and talked about Gabriel’s role as class representative to the school’s student body meetings.

There were school brochures printed in English and Spanish for parents to take home.

Serrianne, who’s in his eighth year teaching at Park Lodge, said he liked being more accommodating to parents by holding the conferences close to home. He said the event also helped him understand his students’ lives a bit more, particularly how far they travel to school each day.

Park Lodge also has students from two other large apartment complexes closer to school, Melluzzo said.

If the Aladdin-Camelot road show goes as well as expected, she said, she would love to plan parent conferences at those locations as well.

This story was originally published November 22, 2015 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Lakewood teachers go extra miles for parent conferences."