We have a HM Chairperson who coordinates the various "moms". As mentioned above, she has a young child so this is a great job for her and doesn't require being up at school all the time.
The HM's then coordinate the parties according to the teachers' wishes. Our school is very small so our HM's are whoever volunteers for the job, but a larger school should use the "picking from the hat" method to prevent the same person always taking the job.
At this school, we allow the HM to somewhat determine the party, but at the larger school we were at before, the administration or PTO set the guidelines. You couldn't have one class having this huge affair and the rest having a cookie and a drink. Some coordination of efforts is good for fairness, but also allow some freedom of creativity.
Always thank your HM's because they do a great job!
Our school doesn't have room parents which surprised me when my oldest started there. Last year our president tried to start the concept of room parents. It went over like a lead balloon --surprise again! My advice would be to make sure you have buy in for the idea from the teachers and principal. Apparently the people at our school thought the room parents were the only ones who were to help with the parties, etc. and no one else needed to help. The teachers were so used to getting their own volunteers in their own way, they didn't know what to do with these room parents. Just make sure the teachers understand and agree with how you are handling things before getting your volunteers lined up. [img]smile.gif[/img]
first off, thanks for all the input!
one of the major reasons we are thinking of doing this is because we have little involvement in our pto. so we wouldn't require membership dues but we also don't require that anyhow, its a donation when you sign up at the beginning of the year.
previously our pto hasn't contacted alot of the people who sign up to help- leading to many not bothering to sign up anymore. we're trying to change that as well and thanks for the ahead of time warnings and rule suggestions. [img]smile.gif[/img]
do you make the room parents be "pto members" which i mean just that they have paid their $3 dues. weve had the rule that the lead room parent & any parents that come to the planning meeting have to be a member. we dont feel this is a big deal, like i said its the $3 dues and "saying" im pto member. we do this to try to promote pto & show community that the parties are supported by pto. we have had parents mad about this rule. they will not come to the planning meetings but show up on party day w/ their own goodies. weve even had a clique this year that ran down pto like crazy(one of those speaking up this week to say she wanted 2nd vp-im like "yeah right"). whats your take? should just lead room parents be "made" to be a member, should we leave alone & just recommend but not make? are your "lead" room parents actually board members? Thanks for input SuZan
We have had room parents forever and I have some suggestions to head off a problem before it starts. When we send out the volunteer sign up sheet we also send out a seperate one for homeroom volunteers. It lists the opportunities for helping such as chaperoning field trips, helping with bulletin boards, baking for parties, helping out at parties, etc. And then we have a paragraph describing the homeroom parents duties, which can differ dramatically from grade to grade. We actually have 2 parents for each kindergarten and first grade class because there can be so much parent involvement. Because we have sign ups for helping just in the classroom we've generated an easy list for the homeroom parent to call from. What has happened in the past is that the hr parent would just call her friends over and over out of conveince, shyness or whatever or the same parent would be the hr parent for her child over and over. To solve the first problem we tell all the homeroom parents when we pick them (we do this by putting all the names in a hat and picking) that they need to call everyone at least once. And we made a rule that you cannot be a homeroom parent for each of your children more then once unless no one else volunteers. It's interesting how many parents are willing to help with just their childs class instead of on a committee doing something for the whole school. We couldn't do without these helpers!
The responses are great, but if this is the first year you are implimenting Room Parents, you might want to go a bit simpler. That way you can guage what works for you and what doesn't. Figure out (aka make a list...lol) of what it is that you think a room parent should do. Our school uses the 'Room Parent' as a contact person between the teachers and the other class parents, usually for parties and field trips, to ensure that we don't have 30 dozen cookies and no punch or plates... I try to use parents who are unable to come do stuff at the school because they have small children at home, work crazy hours or something like that. They do the work for the teachers. It was our first year this last year, and it seems to have worked out very well, getting parents to help who might not otherwise be able to. You can give the people who can show up another name, like Classroom Party Crews or something equally fun.
