nerves

I have my first parent-teacher conference tomorrow.

I am terrified.

I've had several IEP meetings already this year, but I knew what to expect with them and the whole team was there to balance everything out. Tomorrow will be me, the parent, and (I'm hoping) someone from administration.

I've tried to be positive as I could with this parent about her child's performance in my class while still being honest about the child's needs and problems. After a phone call on Thursday, I'm wondering if I was too positive. The parent seemed to be surprised by what I was telling her, even though the reports from last year, the behavior intervention plan, IEP present levels, and the things I'd told her so far seemed to be consistent with what I was saying.

I'm bringing my A game, all the data I have, and my diplomatic face to the conference in the morning. I'm worried that won't be enough. I don't feel like I have enough data (although I'm not dumb enough to tell that to mom) because so often someone in the room is in crisis or needs intensive one-on-one help. How do you take data when one student is having an extreme behavioral escalation and the other students need to be occupied so that they don't have one, too? I feel like I need to clone myself.

Anyway, wish me well tomorrow.