Parent-Teacher night

Here I am at school, in an empty classroom, waiting for parents to show up so that I can either praise or eviscerate their kids. It is 7:53 PM as I write this and I have seen a slew of people, and while it is a no-brainer to suppose this, it really is hard to bring bad news to a parent when their child has been under-performing. The look of distress and pain on some of those faces bring home to me what an important job this really is, and what an incredible responsibility I have taken on. Seriously, it is overwhelming if I think about it too long. Now I have taken on the onus of alerting some of the families if their child begins to slip or improve, depending, although some of the kids have already checked out and I am not too sanguine about the prospects for some of them. I would like to be able to say that every child is reachable, but...I don't know, sometimes.