With band music, a college preparation meeting and lots of different projects on display, the staff of Green High School hoped to change the way people think about the parent-teacher conference Tuesday night.

The school put on its first ever Renaissance Night. The idea is to give the conferences a whole new feel and incorporate a Renaissance — or rebirth of knowledge — theme.

“(We wanted to) rethink what a parent/teacher conference is,” said Michelle Singleton, an eighth grade language arts teacher. Singleton is chair of the committee that planned the event. Normally the school does not have a lot of attendance for the high school parent-teacher conferences and the teachers wanted to change that.”

With that in mind the school included a band concert and a meeting for the parents of juniors to discuss college, FAFSA and scholarships.

The original idea for the event came from David Edwards, the school’s music teacher and band director,

“It’s just to give an example of how well rounded of an education we’re offering at Green,” Edwards said. “It’s the first of many efforts for us to collaborate all departments.”

Singleton said she hopes parents and community members left with an idea of how much high school has changed over the years.

With the state and federal requirements for students “they can’t just squeak by anymore,” she said. “That’s not going to make it in this world.”

Moving from classroom to classroom, parents and community members could see first-hand the projects the students had worked on.

Along one wall was a bulletin board filled with projects in which the students had written essays about a particular leader. Another wall was filled with a math class’s line curve posters.

Robin Applegate is a parent of three students in the school district. She came Tuesday to talk with teachers.

“I think it’s very important for parents and teachers to interact,” Applegate said. “It takes both the parents and the teachers working together.”

Outside of the biology room, parents could find hand-drawn, nearly life-sized diagrams of the human body complete with labeled organs.

In an art classroom were papier mache masks and drawings.

Student-produced books were on display in another classroom. For this project the student came up with the ideas on their own for the books, which will be sent to a child in Africa.

Anita Bruce, a parent of one student and three graduates of the school, came to see the books, one of which her son wrote.

“I think they did a wonderful job with that,” Bruce said.

Bruce added that the class projects teach the students a great deal.

“I love our school,” she said. “I think we have a wonderful school system and a wonderful school.”

At another station, parents could check out information about the school’s community service class. So far this year the students have collected money for an ill teacher, visited a nursing home, held a coat drive and collected donations to buy American flags for each of the school’s classrooms.

“We’ve got a lot of good things going on, it’s just that no one seems to know,” Mindy Clark, a teacher, said. “It’s about really getting the information out to the public. I think the kids deserve recognition.”