We have our "Classroom Coordinators" (home room parents) arrange for childcare during the meetings. Each class is responsible for 1 month and we have 2 moms/dads and 2-3 Jr. High (6-8th) students assist. They sign up at the beginning of the year-this allows them to plan months in advance for their scheduled time. We than update our sitters on what happened at the meeting. This has worked well for us. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Everyone should check woth your insurance carries on the babysitting issues- They can advise you that if you are going to offer these services what you need to provide and get from parents to protect your organization from a potential lawsuit- For instance in our PTA accoridng to our insurance guidelines that are given to us by NYS the babysitters must be over the age of 17 and not related to each other. There can be no hot beverages in the room where the children will be , and in some cases parents may have to sign a waiver stating they understand any injuries are covered through their insurance not the PTA's or schools..
I have one adult supervisor (my husband) and one paid high school student (my son). It could be any high schooler, but we found that paying someone worked out better...one of those "You Get What You Pay For" things... We tried to do it with the community credit thing, but the students didn't want to do it more than one or two times. We tried to find students to do it for the money, but they didn't think we were paying enough ($10 for an hour, $5 per half hour of overtime). My son was the only one willing to do it. The up side to paying someone, in my opinion, is that the children who attend get familiar with the same individuals.
At our meetings we have asked a Girl Scout Troop to baby-sit our children. They receive credit for it from there group. The girls really have a great time as well as the younger kids. Our meeting are at 3:15 and over by 4:00.
I recently brought this up with some of the other officers. I suggested that every parent pay $1 per child for childcare. The sitter would be someone trust worthy. I would like to think this would enable more parents to be involved. We have extremely low parent participation. We haven't tried it yet, I'm still investigating other options as well.
