Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax, VA records volunteer hours from over 225 schools and send that information to the superintendent and school board. During the 2006-2007 school year, over 85,000 volunteers donated 1,150,836 hours of service to our schools. If those volunteers had been paid an entry-level instructional assistant salary for the hours they volunteered, the bill for that year alone would have been 14 million dollars! Now that's a statistic that gets people's attention and highlights the value of our volunteers.
At my daughter's last school, we had a policy where every student's family was REQUIRED to volunteer at least 10 hours during the school year. The way we tracked the hours was to have a book in the office where parents would sign in (and get their badges). If they were working on a committee or after school, the teacher they were working for, or the committee chair would would verify the hours.
We had volunteers who would enter those hours into a database so that the principal could be informed on a weekly basis of who had completed their hours and who still needed to do hours.
The school also used those hours to honor those parents who put in far above and beyond the required number of hours.
We actually changed systems in mid-stream, so to speak. The original system put in place wasn't working real well, but the second system seemed to.
MaMaMia, I just found out that one of our members employer will give a monetary donation for every hour their employee volunteers for her PTA. So... some companies must do this. I will let you know what I find out.
Ma Ma Mia- I'm in Colorado and I'm not sure it this is just something we ave here or what? Also I'm sure I got the short of a long story, I do know how many hours we turn in looks good towards the renewal of our charter!
Our school is also a charter school and I am interested in what you said about your school received funds for volunteer hours earned? We are in Michigan. What state are you in? I am just thinking it may help with participation and getting backing from board, management, staff, etc. Any help would be great. Thanks.
