Our school district requires us to use school staff, so we use the staff from the before and afterschool program. We have to have at least two sitters, even if only one or two kids show up, so it's $30/hour, I think.
No there were no adults because we made sure everyone we used was mature and reliable and an upstanding student. We have had no problems whatsoever. In fact this year we tweaked our childcare services a bit more. Since some of them were not boardmembers children and we couldn't go home and talk about how the evening went... were the kids ok... what did you do with them?....we had each childcare provider read a "rules" sheet (what was expected of them) and sign it. We also provided parents with a "rules" sheet as well. If their child did not respect the rules and follow the direction of the childcare provider, they would be notified that their child was a bit of a problem. We had two kids who got overly rambunctious and were disrespectful: "You can't tell me what to do" kind of stuff. The parent was told.
Hi CBrooks...I have to say that childcare makes a HUGE difference in our meetings. I wouldn't go back without it. We are forunate that our district allows a school aide to be there the one hour to watch kids. They get paid their hourly wage. there was discussion this may be cut but it wasn't ....yet!! Our group agreed that we would pay the cost if need be, as for older kids why not try you high school honor society...they usually do community service hours.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Were there adults with these middle schoolers as well? I had a 7th grade boy who helped me with ESS for community service. He was great with the little ones, but I am not sure how that would go over with parents. I would trust someone like him to be responsible enough to watch my boys for an hour or so, but I still wonder...
We started childcare at our meetings 3 years ago. The first year we utilized between 3-5 regular dependable 7th graders at our school. Four of them were our board's kids and pretty much very reliable. We did solicit for childcare providers at the middle school and sent a request sheet to each 8th grader - before anyone thinks we did not pick anyone other than our own kids! - No one came forward.
This was a volunteer effort on their part and at the end of the year we wrote a letter for each of them stating that they provided a comunity service for us and listed how many hours they volunteered for the year. We also voted to give the girls a certificate for ice cream at a local ice cream store. Each certificate was for $5.00. We thanked each of them each month in our newsletter as well. The next year we had 3 of the same girls and we did the same at the end of the year but gave them a $10 certificate to a movie theater. This year we had 5-6 who volunteered (boys too! :eek: )and we ended up giving each a "Rambuck" for each time they helped out and a certificate for a slice of pizza and soda at a local pizzeria. Rambucks are an incentive program at our middle school. At the end of the year they can redeem their rambucks for prizes or go to functions the school sponsors for the rambuck program. We rotated them for each meeting because we only needed a couple of providers at each meeting.
We use our local girl scout troop. For this and much more. They man tables at all our family events, help w/ set up and clean up. At the end of the year we donate $250 towards their annual trip.
