<p>Indeed, I have noticed that the volunteers are typically SAHMs with well-off husbands.</p>
<p>Actually, where I live the volunteers in the public schools do go through a background check. I do not know if every parent is put through this scrutiny, or if just outside volunteers (adults who offer to help students with reading, math, etc). This was told to me by a friend who is the principal of an elementary school. </p>
<p>When my kids were young we parents had to provide the transportation for the field trips, and serve as chaperones. We all had to provide copies of our licenses and insurance to the school in advance. this ws fine, adn totally reasonable. </p>
<p>In other organizations, such as scouts, leaders go through formal training programs. Sadly in this day and age, much of it has become risk management focused. Still, the dedicated parents do it because it is the right thing to do. there are many parents who do not, for whatever their rationalized reasons/excuses, and that is their choice. It is sad, but that is their decision. </p>
<p>I forgot to mention one of the biggest volunteer events at the school-- the senior big celebration/party/overnight event held annually for the senior class. It is all handled by parent volunteers, and it is an absolute blast. The best part is that no parent of a senior participates in the event for the senior class. This might be embarassign for the parent or studnet, so only parents of freshmen, sophomores and juniors participate. I did it for 2 years. What a woonderfully fun experience.</p>
<p>The way I see volunteering contributing to the school is this (the other benefits were secondary, but awesome):</p>
<p>Take any teacher, coach, staff member, etc. who runs a program. It can be a classroom; it can be band or orchestra; it can be athletics; it can be an academic team or speech team. Whoever that teacher, coach, staff member is… they are not superhuman. There are always ways they wish to further enrich their program (no matter how much money that program has), but resources aren’t there - whether that be time or money. Teachers, coaches and staff members should not be spending their time fundraising (why spend their time doing that when their true gifts and skills are teaching and/or coaching kids) or doing simple tasks that take them away from spending time with the students doing what they’re trained to do.</p>
<p>I will use baseball as an example - along come 50 parents whose kids want to be part of the baseball program. But because the school district is spending money on seriously-needed repairs to the parking lot, there is no money to also provide some repairs or upgrades to the baseball program (maybe their bleachers are falling apart; maybe the field needs constant maintenance because it’s become so run down over the years and can only be used for games and not practices - I’m sure you get the picture). It would be of no use for the baseball coach to spend his time after school trying to raise funds for new bleachers or major repairs to the baseball field so that the team can actually practice on the field instead of inside the gym. So the parents step up - one of those parents might be in the trades and offer to volunteer to head up a committee of other parents who are willing to spend a few evenings and weekends, preseason, to fix the field. Or another parent may step up and hold a fundraiser to purchase new bleachers. These are not things the coach should be taking his time to do when parents could be doing it. Could the program go on without these parent volunteer projects? Yes, but by stepping up, these parents can hugely enrich the baseball program, which in turn, makes the experience more pleasant for the team members. </p>
<p>For every example I give, I’m sure CC members could provide a similar example of how parent volunteers enrich programs in their schools that might not otherwise exist, or might be sub-par.</p>
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<p>UNTRUE in our school district, and I imagine many others. Any parents who wants to volunteer in the classroom, or even as a trip chaperone, has to apply. A background check is conducted before the parent is allowed to volunteer in any capacity.</p>
<p>Really, PM? My son’s school has no fund raisers. They just set the tuition at a level where no fund raisers are needed. I really like that. Who has time to go to fund raisers?</p>
<p>Why don’t private schools just increase tuition by 25% and be done with fund raisers? That’s so much better.</p>
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well in my experience the volunteers are doctors, lawyers, aaccountants, consultants, hotel managers, , you name it. And they are moms and dads. The stereotypic “ladies who lunch” image is antiquated and inaccurate.</p>
<p>I was just about to respond to IP, against my better judgement also, but got caught up with “Criminal Mind,” one of very few TV shows I like down here…</p>
<p>I was a working mom while my kids were growing up, whereas most of their friends’ moms were stayed home moms. I volunteered whenever I had time because I wanted them to know that I cared about where they spend most of their time. I used to go to their school for Chinese New Year until they were in 5th grade. I made dumplings for them in class, and they all went home with chocolate gold money. I had 2 kids who went through the school, and their teachers could always count on me to come in to do something every year. I used to just do it for their class, but their friends from other classes started to complain, so I ended up doing for their whole grade with help of other Asian moms. I wasn’t in school as much as other parents, but my kids could always tell their kids that their mom was coming in for Chinese New Year. There were other parents who came in for Halloween, Hanukkah, teachers’ appreciation day, birthdays, field trips (H was always welcomed to help with bathroom runs for boys).</p>
<p>I think if we didn’t volunteer, a lot of our kids would miss out on a lot of cultural enrichment events, they wouldn’t have people to show them how important it is to show appreciation of their teachers, or to just give their teachers a break sometimes. </p>
<p>Through our volunteering (involvement) at school, we felt more connected with our kids, we got to know our kids’ friends and their parents better. Some of my closest friends now are my kids’ parents.</p>
<p>Teri, Great example! That’s what I meant - giving money works.</p>
<p>It is good to know that background checks are needed for parent volunteers.</p>
<p>I have worked in my son’s classrooms for years in CA and in OH and I have tutored students one on one at school as a volunteer in both states.</p>
<p>By the way, if parents are not allowed to … interfere (I love the …'s Xiggi!) with education, how can parents make schools better, academically speaking? All the dumplings in the world will not help learning history and civics easier.</p>
<p>Money is cheap relative to time.
sometimes eating dumplings is more important.</p>
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As you have now been told by many posters here, this first statement is patently incorrect. Rather than make such proclamations as if they were fact, perhaps you might consider asking rather than assuming you know the answer, as apparently you do not, as then you spend the next 20 posts responding to all the posters who corrected your fallacious information and digging yourself out of a hole. Unless of course that is exactly what you intended all along.</p>
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<p>You’re missing the point IP. It might be the most efficient use of your materialistic resources but not of your fathering resources. Ask your son what is the most efficient use of your time; his answer might surprise you and be of more value than the almighty $.</p>
<p>You want an academic example? Here’s one.</p>
<p>From the time my kids were in kindergarten, I volunteered about an hour in the classroom each week. For example, when D1 was in 4th grade she had a teacher that really wanted to push some of the higher achievers further than she could with a classroom of 30+ kids with different ability levels. So when I went into the classroom, she had identified a small group of kids which I took out in the hallway just outside her classroom for spelling enrichment. I would give both a practice test and real test to these kids and grade them (or maybe I facilitate the kids grading each others papers). When we were done, I’d deliver the papers back to the teacher, and whatever she did with them was none of my business (also as a parent volunteer, I was not allowed to discuss any child’s achievements, grades or abilities with anyone, even the child’s parents. If I ran into one of these kids’ parents in the grocery store later that afternoon, it was not appropriate for me to say, “Oh yea, I worked with Little Johnny today in spelling, and he got a 95% on his test.” I did occasionally have other parents get a little nosy and indirectly ask me how good of a student another kid in the class was. My pat reply was always, “I’m really not allowed to discuss the students’ work.”</p>
<p>So yea, my kid benefitted from my work, as my kid was always part of the higher achieving group, so she probably got an additional challenge that might not have happened had I not volunteered to do this once a week. But even more importantly, because the title of this thread is ‘The future for ALL our children’, I believe the time I spent taking these 7-8 kids out of the classroom and working with them, freed up more of the teacher’s time to provide more individual attention to some of the kids who were struggling. And that’s always a good thing.</p>
<p>oops, I fear we have taken the bait!</p>
<p>BTW, Xiggi, I am going to ask my kid if he would be happy to have me on those field trips and sporting events and such. If he says yes, I will go. Don’t think it will help anyone else’s kid, but if it makes him happy, for sure I will be there. So thank you. Perhaps your approach makes sense.</p>
<p>Limabeans01 is right again!!</p>
<p>Teri, A 30-1 student/teacher ratio is horrible. This is a case of the school district clearly lacking funds. It is rarely above 10 in my state. I think this is a case of low taxation.</p>
<p>BTW, when the high achievers are left to volunteers while the teacher focuses on the low achievers, the low-maintenance kids get ignored. This is what I was talking about earlier.</p>
<p>When my s’s were young, in about 2nd grade IIRC, they had a “secret reader” once a month on Friday. It was always a parent of one of the kids, and they love d to try to figure out whose parent was going to appear. The parent brought one of their child’s favorite short stories to share with the class. That was 15+ years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday. It meant so much to the kids to have their parent there. It is one of those memories and experiences that no amount of money can buy.</p>