Project Week and Parent Teacher Conferences

As a reminder, Project Week and Parent-Teacher Conferences will take place the week of January 7th.
You will receive an email from SignupGenius.com with a link to your child(ren)’s Parent-Teacher Conference sign-up.

Project Week: January 7th-11th
Project Week is an important part of the curriculum at Glendale Prep. During the week, all students will complete an independent study assignment at home (reading and writing) on a specific text related to a particular subject in their grade’s curriculum and will need to acquire this text prior to the beginning of Project Week if they have not done so already.

This year, we are offering the Project Week book, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, ISBN: 978-0307388865, on the payment portal for all high school (9th-12 grade) students. ISBN numbers of the required texts for 6th-8th grade are listed below. However, this book is on the Classics to Keep list for 6th -8th grade, therefore students should already own this book.

6th Grade Lit/Comp: The Magician’s Nephew, ISBN: 978-0064471107
7th Grade Life Science: All Creatures Great and Small, ISBN: 978-1250057839
8th Grade Medieval History: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien translation), ISBN: 978-0345277602

If for any reason, a family wishes the school to provide a copy of the readings for any grade, the request can be made of the school office by Thursday, December 13th. We will then provide a book that may be picked up in the office. Copies will remain the property of Glendale Prep and must be returned with no markings. All annotating must be completed on a separate sheet of paper.

Students will be given guidelines and assignments to accompany the reading by the teacher in whose class the reading is assigned. In addition, the assignment for Upper School students will culminate with the Humane Letters Symposium on Monday, January 14th, a day-long academic conference that will feature inter-grade seminars and a guest lecture. Please note that the school will provide a pizza lunch for all Upper School students (9th-12th) at the Symposium. Therefore, please do not place a lunch order for your high school student for that day. Any student who does not want pizza may instead bring lunch from home. Middle School students will need to order or bring their lunch for that day.

All reading and writing for the assignment must be completed and brought to school on Monday, January 14th, and will be reflected in the 3rd quarter evaluations for the subject area specific to that grade’s assignment. Students should expect to spend approximately 20-25 hours working on their assignments over the course of Independent Study Week. Please support your children in planning a reasonable study schedule for that week in order to ensure that adequate time and effort is devoted to the completion of this important assignment.

Note: Seniors will be required to complete the reading portion of the assignment; however, they will not be required to complete the written portion, in order to focus their writing attention on their Senior Thesis.

Parent-Teacher Conferences: January 7th-11th
At least one parent/guardian of each student is expected to attend parent-teacher conferences. All conferences will be fifteen minutes long. The format will be a round-table discussion including the parent and a panel of the student’s teachers.

• 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students do not attend conferences.
• Freshmen and Sophomores are strongly encouraged to attend conferences as observers.
• Juniors are required to attend conferences and to engage in a substantial self-assessment. In addition, Juniors and their parents should plan to spend an additional 15 minutes after their conference to meet with our College Counselor. Juniors should bring their completed resumes to their College Counseling appointment.
• Seniors are required to attend and lead their conference, and to engage in a substantial self-assessment. This leadership reflects and honors the seniors’ maturity and stature at the school.
• *Students attending conferences must be in uniform.

An e-mail will be sent tomorrow with a link to reserve a time slot for your conference. If you have multiple students at GP, you will receive separate SignupGenius emails with a unique link for each grade/section. Please do not send requests for conferences via email. Conferences are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis. 

The schedule for conferences is as follows (high school conferences are determined by Humane Letters teacher):

Please report to the front office at least 10 minutes prior to your scheduled conference time. Conferences are scheduled back to back; therefore, your timeliness is very important. We thank you in advance for your support in helping to make these important academic events a success. Please be sure to read your student’s semester evaluations carefully prior to conferences. Student evaluations will be emailed to parents before January 7th. We have worked diligently to limit the number of schedule conflicts between teachers; however, please be aware that with more sections than ever, a number of teachers will likely have two conferences to attend per time slot. As such, those teachers will flow in and out of each conference.

Warmly,
Glendale Prep Leadership Team