Another Back to School Night at Heritage, another parent-teacher meetup. It’s a night dreaded by students who would like nothing more than to relax after a day of grueling classes, but for teachers it’s a whole different challenge.

Mr. Turrey, a new teacher to Heritage, says parents and students “have taken responsibility to heart”, which results in a bigger turnout at Heritage compared to other schools. He also commented that it’s good to see “parent-community involvement”, supporting parent engagement in their student’s education and school environment.

“Parents and teachers are a team and work together” said Ms. Allen, formerly Mrs. Peddie. She says the outcome of this bond is a higher success rate for students.

Two teachers were willing to share embarrassing stories about their first Back to School Night experience.

Mrs. Phillips recounted almost had an embarrassing mishap on her first Back to School Night. She had been coaching a soccer game right before the night began, which led to her to rush into the classroom out of breath and to become terrified of what parents would think of the tardiness. Nevertheless, she still continued her agenda, not letting her anxiety and tardiness affect her schedule.

Mrs. Shanker, the new choir teacher, had many people struggle with the location of her classroom. She had joked that even after her students had written the word “CHOIR” in giant chalk letters and created obvious signs pointing to her classroom, evidently parents still got lost locating her classroom, which lead to an awkward wait for the stragglers.

The teachers have commented that Back to School Night brings up anxieties they don’t normally have teaching students.

“I don’t feel in time,” says Mrs. Pennington, unable to answer all of the parents’ questions. She states that presenting to parents is anxiety-inducing and this is because it is her responsibility to give the parents a snapshot of “What’s my child experiencing?”.

It’s a completely different crowd to present to, but if you’ve taught adults before teenagers, like Mrs. Worden, the retired Drafting teacher, then it’s smooth sailing. She has taught for 26 years, revisiting Heritage to greet her past students and adds that she misses Heritage.

A lot of aspects of this event can make one anxious or make one feel not worthy of the job, but the atmosphere and the structure of the night reduces confusion and helps relieve a lot of the stress for teachers.