How room parent is selected ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, which is cynical, it is professional full time mom types (SAHMs) with other kids in the school who are active in the PTA. Good luck if you want to be room mom and you are a working mom of 1 child and are new to the school: no one will take you seriously.

As you get up in grades there is bit more room for new faces to contribute.

The further away from DC you live, the more this is true; the closer in you live, the more flexible it is and first-come-first-serve is more apt. But it is always harder to find room parents for the older grades.

Also sometimes the room parent volunteers don't work out: I ended up being de facto room parent once when the actual room parent only collected money for gifts and I let the teacher know I could help out - she just came directly to me for everything.

At our school there were tons of professional moms who volunteered. Most had high powered jobs too like lobbyists and Ph.D. researchers and that kind of thing but they all were meticulously organized. I felt like it was easier for me to work with them because they didn't get bogged down in little things and were very efficient.

No dads?

NP and in my 13 years as an MCPS parent, I have never seen a dad as a room parent. Several PTA officers are dads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We receive an email that our elementary school wants every classroom has a room parent to deal with events & fundraising. Our back to school night is coming up in person. How does room parent is selected? It would be best if someone volunteers. What happens if no one volunteers?

If no one volunteers, the last parent to arrive gets appointed room parent. It's in the Bible.

[Anonymous]

My spouse, who is a man, was room parent for our children, 2 years each. At our Elementary school, it was usually the first couple of names, and the parents who volunteered, worked on events and communications together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We receive an email that our elementary school wants every classroom has a room parent to deal with events & fundraising. Our back to school night is coming up in person. How does room parent is selected? It would be best if someone volunteers. What happens if no one volunteers?

First sucker to raise a hand.

LOL. That is exactly right.

[Anonymous]

My child school does not have room parents. I do communicate with the teacher to ask if there's anything that they need for the classroom and purchase it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, which is cynical, it is professional full time mom types (SAHMs) with other kids in the school who are active in the PTA. Good luck if you want to be room mom and you are a working mom of 1 child and are new to the school: no one will take you seriously.

As you get up in grades there is bit more room for new faces to contribute.

The further away from DC you live, the more this is true; the closer in you live, the more flexible it is and first-come-first-serve is more apt. But it is always harder to find room parents for the older grades.

Also sometimes the room parent volunteers don't work out: I ended up being de facto room parent once when the actual room parent only collected money for gifts and I let the teacher know I could help out - she just came directly to me for everything.

Similar experience. A select few were room parents every year. If you offered, the teachers bluntly told you that they could not deviate from that group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, which is cynical, it is professional full time mom types (SAHMs) with other kids in the school who are active in the PTA. Good luck if you want to be room mom and you are a working mom of 1 child and are new to the school: no one will take you seriously.

As you get up in grades there is bit more room for new faces to contribute.

The further away from DC you live, the more this is true; the closer in you live, the more flexible it is and first-come-first-serve is more apt. But it is always harder to find room parents for the older grades.

Also sometimes the room parent volunteers don't work out: I ended up being de facto room parent once when the actual room parent only collected money for gifts and I let the teacher know I could help out - she just came directly to me for everything.

Similar experience. A select few were room parents every year. If you offered, the teachers bluntly told you that they could not deviate from that group.

What school? This seems far-fetched to me.

[Anonymous]

We had back to school night yesterday, and there is a sign up sheets for these 2 positions. No one signed up at the end of the night. Ooops.....

My work is too busy, and I don't have time to do any volunteering with commitment, so I will just send in donations & fulfill teacher's amazon wishlist. It is for first grader.

Last year at kindergarten, we had many parents step up to be room parent(s) & many volunteer(s) that teachers had to draw lottery to select who could come on which days. Probably as other people says, some parents are smarter or the passion of volunteering die down after kindergartner year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had back to school night yesterday, and there is a sign up sheets for these 2 positions. No one signed up at the end of the night. Ooops.....

My work is too busy, and I don't have time to do any volunteering with commitment, so I will just send in donations & fulfill teacher's amazon wishlist. It is for first grader.

Last year at kindergarten, we had many parents step up to be room parent(s) & many volunteer(s) that teachers had to draw lottery to select who could come on which days. Probably as other people says, some parents are smarter or the passion of volunteering die down after kindergartner year.

Room parent(s) & Monthly Art volunteer(s) postions.

[Anonymous]

We have room parents but they don't go to the class much. All are working moms. They do solicit requests for supplies and help with parties. Thats it.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, an email from the PTO is sent out asking for volunteers for room parents at the beginning of the year. If no one responds, the PTO head asks the people she knows in the class without room parents. I have 3 kids and was room parent multiple times. I would have been perfectly happy is someone reached out to me and asked if they could be co-room parent with me (stating this in case OP is interested in becoming a room parent and didn’t know who you should ask). I also kept things very low key and didn’t stress over parties. For example, Some room parents were into organizing elaborate activities or crafts for parties, I saw kids were happy playing cards or board games and doing coloring sheets/mazes that I could print from online so didn’t bother with trying to figure out anything complex. I would always ask parents in the class if anyone wanted to organize anything for the parties and often would get 2-3 people willing to do so. Basically, you can make the role as difficult or easy as you want. For gifts, I would leave this up to each parent. I tried to organize a class gift one year and it seemed people like to give separately anyway. The teachers always seem to end up with plenty of gifts that I didn’t think there was much value in organizing something centrally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, which is cynical, it is professional full time mom types (SAHMs) with other kids in the school who are active in the PTA. Good luck if you want to be room mom and you are a working mom of 1 child and are new to the school: no one will take you seriously.

As you get up in grades there is bit more room for new faces to contribute.

The further away from DC you live, the more this is true; the closer in you live, the more flexible it is and first-come-first-serve is more apt. But it is always harder to find room parents for the older grades.

Also sometimes the room parent volunteers don't work out: I ended up being de facto room parent once when the actual room parent only collected money for gifts and I let the teacher know I could help out - she just came directly to me for everything.

At our school there were tons of professional moms who volunteered. Most had high powered jobs too like lobbyists and Ph.D. researchers and that kind of thing but they all were meticulously organized. I felt like it was easier for me to work with them because they didn't get bogged down in little things and were very efficient.

No dads?

NP and in my 13 years as an MCPS parent, I have never seen a dad as a room parent. Several PTA officers are dads.

We've had a few, but none did much, including when they were on the PTA. Our PTA has Dad's and they do nothing, but same goes for some the mom's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, an email from the PTO is sent out asking for volunteers for room parents at the beginning of the year. If no one responds, the PTO head asks the people she knows in the class without room parents. I have 3 kids and was room parent multiple times. I would have been perfectly happy is someone reached out to me and asked if they could be co-room parent with me (stating this in case OP is interested in becoming a room parent and didn’t know who you should ask). I also kept things very low key and didn’t stress over parties. For example, Some room parents were into organizing elaborate activities or crafts for parties, I saw kids were happy playing cards or board games and doing coloring sheets/mazes that I could print from online so didn’t bother with trying to figure out anything complex. I would always ask parents in the class if anyone wanted to organize anything for the parties and often would get 2-3 people willing to do so. Basically, you can make the role as difficult or easy as you want. For gifts, I would leave this up to each parent. I tried to organize a class gift one year and it seemed people like to give separately anyway. The teachers always seem to end up with plenty of gifts that I didn’t think there was much value in organizing something centrally.

Are you the private school parent again? MCPS has PTA's.