As a teacher, I find them to be a huge drag. Inevitably, the only parents who show up are the ones whose kids are doing fine. Many schools in my area are moving to student-led conferences, in which the student facilitates the meeting, explains what they’ve been learning, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. It’s good metacognition for them and honestly any teacher should be communicating with parents throughout the year if there are issues anyway.
My parents went a handful of times in elementary school. Never in high school.
Their philosophy was that if something was wrong, they’d be contacted or I’d tell them.
Boarding school (with a decent size day school population ) had detailed written feedback prior to visiting weekend and an opportunity to meet with teachers individually 2× year.
Found it helpful whether it was about issues or just generally about how things seemed to be going. One teacher had mentioned DC seemed inattentive, which I was able to interpret as lost, which turned into additional (much needed) help. Another let me read a paper that DC had written which the teacher felt was "beautiful and brilliant " and which of course I had not seen. It was beneficial to get a sense of who DC was when not around us as well as guidance on how we could support him while keeping our distance. (I.e., “if he wants peer tutoring in math, you’ll need to pick him up later”) With that said, I felt the teachers in that environment saw their role as more than simply providing academic instruction; they believed they were helping them maneuver their way to adulthood. The mandate is not the same at every school, so I could just as easily see skipping conferences if it were simply about academics and my kid was doing well.
Our private high school did P/T conferences twice a year. Their structure was unusual. Every single teacher had a desk in the open gym. They were arranged in alphabetical order, and were far enough apart that you really couldn’t hear what other teachers were saying to other parents. You signed up online and when your time slot came up, you sat down opposite the teacher at his or her desk.
Most parents scheduled a few of these, regardless of how their child was doing. I used my time slots to affirm and thank the teachers, give them info about my children’s temperaments that they might find useful, and ask about areas of concern (usually, my son’s social life or my daughter’s anxiety.) I also confess to going off on private ego trips when they said nice things about my kids.
While I firmly believe a kid should own his high school experience, I also believe it is good for teachers to see that there is a whole family behind a kid who is on the same team as the teacher.
Elementary school teacher conferences were twice a year we always went. Teachers always talked about our kids’ great sense of humor - not something we particularly noticed at home, but it seemed to be a good thing. In middle school you could have a conference with the whole team but you had to request it. We never did, but did work with the math department to get our older son accelerated. They made a big to do about it, but we felt vindicated when he got the second highest score in the school on the AMC8 in 6th grade. Younger son had a 504 plan so we met once a year for that. We had some discussions with the high school about my older son taking AP Comp Sci as a freshman, but otherwise never had conferences. Younger son asked that we drop the 504 plan. His reasons were legitimate and we did. So never had meetings in high school.
We did always go to Meet the Teacher night, so we had eyeballed the teachers. But that was about it, except for the one teacher we got to know through Science Olympiad. Both kids all four years.
Our school district does conferences twice per year. In elementary school they were at schedule times. During middle and high school, they were open. The teachers sat at tables in the gym and you could talk to one or more of them. Conferences ran from 4pm-8pm one day and 11-8 the next (no school that day). We always go. I try to time it and go when I think it will be quieter so we don’t have to wait much. Kids went with us most of the time but they did not have to.