Online Parent Conference Sign Ups---Making My Life Easier

In years past parent conference sign ups have always been problematic.  I usually have parents sign up at Curriculum Night because I generally have a pretty large group and can get a lot signed up at once.  This has worked fairly well, but I always had some parents who needed to reschedule because things come up and they were signing up so far in advance.   This year my team and I thought..."There has to be a better way!"

TA DA---ONLINE CONFERENCE SIGN UPS!

Maybe you have been doing these for years, but this was an epiphany for us!  I did some research and decided that Google Drive (Making a Spreadsheet) would be the best avenue for me.  Once my spreadsheet was created, I emailed the link to all of families.  They clicked on the link, entered their name in a time slot and they were done!  It took me about a week and half to get everyone signed up.  I only had to send one reminder email to a few families.  Some of the biggest pluses that I have heard from families are: being able to sign up at home where they have their calendar right in front of them, quick and easy, they don't even have to press save because Google Drive saves automatically, and not feeling pressured to sign up when 25 other families are there. Check out a picture of online sign ups below and you can decide if you want to make your own by following my step by step instructions.

To make your own spreadsheet:

1. Sign in to your Google account (if you have Gmail, then you have one)
2. Click on Drive at the top of your screen
3. Click the red "Create" button, then click spreadsheet
4. Google Spreadsheets are essentially  like Microsoft Excel, so you will need to create your spreadsheet how you would like it.  You are welcome to use my template if you would like.
5. When you are ready to email your link to parents you will have to click share in the top right corner and change the settings.
6. Where it says "Who has access" change it to "Anyone with the Link"-Once you click anyone with the link another section will pop up that says "Access: (Anyone No Sign In Required)  Can View"  Make sure you change the can view part to "can edit" or parents will not be able to edit the document.
7. Next click save
8. Now you just copy and paste the link into an email to families.
9.  Watch the sign ups begin! :)

I love that I will have this already for next year and I will just have to edit the dates and times.  What a quick and easy way to do conference sign ups.  It has sure saved me a lot of hassle!

Here is the link to a copy of my conference sign up sheet-I have it set up so you can just view it, not edit it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgLqq-SInmwVdFl4THJhMDlkWmRKeC1TUkJOQm9ORFE 

Also, here is the initial email that I sent home to parents:

Hi Families! 

We are already in the midst of our 5^th week of school and I am enjoying getting to know your kiddos.  This is a fun group and I can tell we are going to have a great year.  It is time to schedule a parent conference so we can meet and talk specifically about how your child is doing in first grade and how we can support them in their education this year.  Our parent conferences will be during the last week of October and the first week of November.  Please click on the link to sign up online.  Any changes that you make to this document will save automatically!  This is my first time using an online sign up, so hopefully all will go smoothly.

Have a great day!

Mandy Lomax

---Insert Link Here---

I would encourage you to try online sign ups if you are thinking about it!  I hope this helps.

Happy Conferencing!

Mandy L.