These comments are not meant to be official policy in any form. They are simply drawn from my personal experience of 20+ years of conferencing...
Some teachers print out progress reports for all of their students and have them ready to pass out to parents when they arrive. This is certainly a possibility. If you wish to follow this route, I would suggest printing on the large Konica copiers. It's fast (70 pages a minute) and it saves toner.
I would always have my summary printouts of the official quarter grades that showed students' grades, with one line per student, one page per class. I graded with category grades of homework/classwork, quizzes, and tests. So as parents sat down, I would check the different category grades and then discuss strengths and weaknesses (eg. 'the homework grade is what is keeping the student afloat, maybe he/she could come in at lunch to review for quizzes and tests with me' or 'He/she is doing ok on the quizzes and tests, but the missing homework is keeping the overall grade down. I count homework/classwork as 33% of the grade because I want students to get in the habit of completing the work. In college, they frequently leave the answers to the homework in the lab and they never collect it (math classes) but if you don't do it regularly, you fall into big trouble...')
With posting of grades online, if parents wish to check on the specifics of what is done or not done, they can do it on a weekly basis, not just at parent conferences. I might have a few copies of a handout available that I would offer to parents who were not familiar with checking grades online. I've attached a sample here. (Don't forget to edit it.) Instructions for printing passwords only are posted.
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