We also are a small catholic school that implements the 20 volunteer hours or pay $300 buyout. There are several opportunities to volunteer. Attending PTO meetings, helping on our major PTO fundraiser or events such as Family Fun Nights, Market Days, etc. are counted towards your 20 hours. In addition, there are many other activities which the principal asks for volunteers, such as score keepers at our basketball games that count. The chairperson for each event has sign-in sheets for parents to sign in and this helps keeps track of of who participated. If a parent doesn't meet their 20 hours, they must pay $300. If a parent doesn't want to volunteer at any time (we all know there are some), they can opt out and pay the $300 at registration. This is handled through our school principal. We have less than a handful that opt out at the beginning of the school year and a very small handful that don't meet their 20 hours.

We are also a private school and are going to implement a mandatory volunteer requirement for the next school year. While we haven't ironed out all the details, we are going to be requiring 20 hours per year (an average of 2 hours per month) and charging a fee if that amount is not done. While we haven't set our amount yet, my suggestion is to make the amount charged high enough that people won't want to pay the money and realize that 2 hours a month really isn't all that difficult. Our local baseball team is the same way, volunteer 4 hours in the summer or pay $100, so far no one has paid the $100.

Also, having plenty of volunteer opportunities available both during the school day or in the evenings is key. So many parents work now and just can't get away during the school day. If they are able to help in other ways, that might encourage more involvement.

As far as tracking, we are probably going to have a sign-in sheet in the school office for parents to log in their hours. However, I have a feeling that one of us on our Home and School committee will be doing the calculations to see who has worked their required hours. Our school secretary has enough to do already - we don't want to add to her workload!

I also would be interested to hear from other schools that have this program and how it works for them.

Unless A) all volunteer coordination goes through the PTO or the PTO is willing to assume the task of volunteer tracking, I would think this would be the job of the administration. Conceivably a person could volunteer at school events that don't necessarily involve the PTO.

I belong to two sports-related teams where X number of volunteer effort is required. One is very regimented, specific opportunities are announced and logs are kept. I believe each family must pay a dollar amount for each hour not worked.

The other is a swim team where it's more informal. Each family is required to work half of any meet in which their child swims. We definitely have some shirkers, but it's handled one on one by the volunteer coordinator. It's not a specific number of hours, so not as quantifiable.

Good luck.

Hello,
I'm new here so I want to thank everyone in advance for any help you can give me.

We are a small (192 students k-8) private Catholic school. In our tuition contract it states that each family is responible to "volunteer" 20 hours per school year. We are having a difficult time. The same families seem to do everything, all the time.

So, my questions are:
1. How do we get people to "volunteer" their 20 hours?
2. How do we get the school admin. to follow through with their "volunteer" policy? What are some of your school's volunteer policies?
3. If you have a similar policy, who tracks the volunteer hours (PTO or school admin)?
4. Do any of your schools have a "volunteer" deposit? Here, with Little League and hockey, you have to write a check for "x" amount and if you don't get your volunteer hours done, they cash the check, if you do your hours, you get your check back.

I would appreciate any ideas you can give me.

Thank you in advance.