1. Give the teacher help and support as he/she requests. In the past, teachers have requested help in such areas as correcting papers, helping to put together student books, or assistance with special activities.
a. you need not do it all! Maintain a list
of parent volunteers for your room and
solicit assistance!
b. when snacks are need for the classroom
see that any all days are covered for
the teacher
2. Work with the PTO volunteer coordinator as a communications link between classroom parents and potential needed volunteers for PTO events.
3. Attend PTO meetings as often as possible to increase the communication level between parents, teacher and community. If you can’t attend a meeting, call
someone on your list. Make sure someone is in
attendance to represent your class.
4. Post school event information in the room. The teacher
will see that there is a place so all the children know
what is going on outside of school hours.
Personally I have always felt that parents volunteering within the classroom is not necessarily a PTO function, but more of a school/teacher decision/responsibility. At our school we have numerous parents who volunteer many, many hours to assist the teachers, but as the PTO President I just couldn't see our group having to coordinate this. I think it is great for the parents to assist the teachers, and I know that the teachers rely on this assistance. Usually the parents will be utilized to make photo copies, read, or pretty much whatever the teachers need. But I have seen that the parentss who volunteer within the class would be doing so even if they were not contacted by a coordinator. Meaning that these parents want to be there and will contact the teachers themselves in order to be able to help out.
The drawback that I see with your situation is that the teachers are presently used to having all of this coordinated for them. So if you no longer have a coordinator they may not take the lead in to getting this to happen without help. Many of my school's teachers have gone out of their way early in the year to obtain a classroom list of parents with contact information. Included in this is parents who wish to volunteer and when they are able to.
If I was in your position I would create a new form during the summer months to help facilitate this with the teachers and parents. Create this form for the teachers and possibly explain it in a back to school packet. Explain how you no longer have a Parent Involvement Coordinator, but that you created this form to help the teachers keep this important resource. Then leave it to the teachers.
I forgot to say that I would be that coordinator, a volunteer myself, to provide the room parents with as much planning information to help them coordinate the activities. They receive a binder of information with flyers, Excel planning documents, and contacts of parents who have coordinated information in the past.
I am the vice president this year of our parent teacher group and can provide you with lots of information on how our school does it. We ask for parents to volunteer by sending them a flyer and a form they fill out. We typically have 4 parents per grade. These parents, who are called room parents, for each class from kindergarten through 8th grade will manage class activities or school parties. Each class is assigned 2-3 events/dinners to coordinate and they pull together volunteers from their class to help plan and execute those events. The larger activities are planned by the parent teacher group available to parents of all grades to plan and coordinate.
Our homeroom teachers are responsible for planning the parties and organizing parent volunteers for field trips. The PTO will use them on occasion to collect fundraiser materials or call parents, but its not done that often.
Depending on how you obtain your volunteers for the year (we send a membership form and parents can also check off the activities they would like to volunteer for. Each chairperson is then given a list of those that volunteered to assist with that activity.) you can provide a description of what a room parent would be responsible for. You will also have to decide who selects the person (the teacher or PTO). to make it fair each year, a parent cannot serve as Head Room parent for the same child two years in a row unless no other parents wish to volunteer. That way more parents have the chance to be involved.
Our teachers coordinate our room parents. And those room parents plan the parties throughout the year (holiday, valentines, etc.) as well as volunteer reading and stuff like that.
