Question: Room Parentless???

We are starting a room parent program this year. What do other groups do when you have teachers with nobody signing up to be their room parent? I've sent out forms asking parent for their level of classroom participation, one of them being room parent. We have 17 teachers, with four of those not having a room parent. I honestly was surprised by this wasn't expecting it. Thanks for any input!

Asked by crazymommachap

Answers:

Community Advice

DVES PTVO writes:
I put together a Room Parent Handout that was present at Back to School Night. When the parents went into the teachers room, she presented them with a booklet that i compiled of Room parent responsibilities. It had resources and simplified the job, so parents could understand that just because they are the Room Parent doesn't mean they have to be at school every day with the teacher. They need to understand that they are the communication between parents and teachers. So if a parent can only help once a week- the Room Parent sets the schedule with other parents to do the same. Delegation is KEY!

Advice from PTO Today

Rose H writes:
Hi crazymommachap,
Great ideas from DVES PTVO! Couple other things to consider: Sometimes parents are scared off as DVES PTVO suggests. You could try reaching out to a few parents from a classroom that doesn't have any room parent and ask if they'll team up and share the duties. So often giving parents that option will make all the difference. Or, is there someone on the board would would be willing to share the room parenting responsibilities with a parent from the room parentless class?

One idea is rather than have a room parent take charge of the whole year, have parents sign up for particular projects or holidays for that one classroom So, one parent runs the Christmas party, one parent runs Teacher Appreciation for the classroom, etc. The only potential downside here is you'd have to do a little extra work keeping track of what parent is doing which project.

Good luck!

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