Spring Conferences take place at the beginning of May to help families plan and prepare for the following school year. Here are some helpful points to consider leading up your conference. 

Sign Up

Your PEARL teacher will send out a link to their calendar that you can use to sign up for a meeting time. The offered times will be during weeks 33 and/or 34. Whichever week you do not meet with your PEARL teacher, your students will complete a Reflection Question post on Seesaw for weekly contact. 

Weekly Contact

To kick off your conference time, your PEARL teacher will likely ask to do a quick check in with your students unless the two of you have arranged for something different for weekly contact. We understand that sometimes parents schedule conferences when their students are occupied in order to have a quiet meeting time. 

Parent SLP Form

Before your conference you need to fill out the Parent SLP Form for each student. If you are not yet sure what you want to do next year, you can just fill out one class. You can choose any subject and any title because that can be changed at the conference if needed. When you get to the "Planning a second class?" question, just choose no. Then you'll sign each of the statements on the last page and submit the form. This will automatically create your student's 25/26 SLP and send both you and your PEARL teacher a copy. 

If you have already made decisions about what you want to do next year, feel free to fill out as much of the Parent SLP Form as you'd like. Alternatively you can also fill out just one class and then you and your teacher can edit within the SLP document rather than using the form. 

Full time students enrolled at 1.0FTE will be required to have all subjects sometime during the year. These include: math, LA, science, social studies, PE/health and fine arts (music, visual art, drama, dance). Any subject can be done in combined units rather than the whole year. 

Full time students also need to be prepared to participate in the SBAC (state testing) in the spring. If you do not want to participate in state testing, students should be enrolled at .8FTE.

When preparing for the coming school year, consider how the current year has gone using these questions: 

• What has gone well?

• What has been a challenge?

• What are my student's goals, strengths and challenge areas?

• Do I want to consider a new curriculum for a particular student? 

Community Based Instructors are a fantastic opportunity for students to take lessons with a local instructor using PEARL allocation. Consider if you'd like to take advantage of this and check out our CBI map to find an instructor in your local area. Click on the CBI's name on the left hand menu to read more about what they offer and find contact information. Finally, if you are already taking lessons from an instructor and would like them to become a PEARL CBI, fill out the paperwork here. 

You can read the CBI requirements in the Parent Handbook. 

Field trips are some of our students' greatest highlights of the year! In past years we have painted pottery, experienced zero gravity at iFly, attended numerous plays at various theaters, attended a nature camp, pet kangaroos and gone whale watching! Field trips are an amazing way to enhance your student's education, enjoy time spent with other PEARL families and participate in something you might not have otherwise! Be sure to consider this use of your allocation! 

Starting June 1st, you can sign up for field trips, including the Meet and Greet that takes place at the beginning of each school year! More field trips will be released the first of the month over summer. Be sure to keep an eye out for those emails!

First semester is often when you need to acquire the majority of your curriculum for the year. Keep in mind that you'll have allocation available again in January at the start of the second semester where you can choose more supplemental curriculum and supplies. 

Taking advantage of the PEARL Lending Library is a great way to preserve your allocation. Take a moment to look at what the library has available and review library guidelines as you plan for the coming school year by clicking here. 

We always encourage K-2 students to be using a phonics based reading curriculum. Our most widely used reading curriculum is All About Reading. Logic of English is another great phonics based program. 

Our PEARL ELA has changed a bit! For students in 3rd-8th, please take a look at our new genre based ELA curriculum series. Each level of the series covers all state standards and includes weekly writing tasks, reading a book of their choice, comprehension activities, speaking and listening activities as well as project based learning opportunities. 

Finally, if your students has struggled with reading this year, be sure to let your PEARL teacher know at your conference so they can help you learn about both curriculum and program supports that are available to you. 

We often get asked about curriculum options that would allow a parent to teach all of their kids certain subjects at the same time. We have some great options to meet this desire. 

• Layers of Learning: Integrated History, Geography, Science and Art for ALL AGES

  • This curriculum is marketed as a family style learning option. Families learn the material together through reading and videos and then complete activities. The reading, videos and activities all have symbols to help the teacher know which age they are best for with numerous books, videos and activities working for all ages. 

• Writer's Workshop: Writing curriculum that integrates with Layer of Learning

  • This writing curriculum is made by Layers of Learning and follows the same model of family style learning.

• Moving Beyond the Page: Integrated LA, social studies and science for age bands 

  • Age bands are grouped into students who are within 2-3 years of each other. For example, some age bands include 4-5 years old, 7-9 years old and 11-13 years old. 

• Five in a Row: Integrated art, history, geography, LA, math and science for age bands 

  • Volumes 1-3 are for ages 5-9

  • Volumes 4 are for ages 9-12

  • Volumes 5 and up have religious material so we are unable to provide them through PEARL

• BookShark:  Integrated LA, social studies and science for age bands

  • Age bands are grouped exactly like Moving Beyond the Page

• Blossom and Root: Integrated science, nature study, art and literature for age bands

  • The age bands in Blossom and Root are larger, typically including 4 years in each band. The exception is kindergarten that is banded for 5-7 year olds.

• Around the World with Picture Books: Literature based integration of art, history, culture, food and LA for K-3rd students

Studies Weekly has a great health curriculum that we think is worth your serious consideration if you'll have a full time student. This newspaper style curriculum will teach students about important social emotional skills, positive communication and all sorts of great health topics.