How does your school/sport handle required parent volunteer work?

[Anonymous]

Other than summer swim (which we don’t do any more) no sport has had mandatory parent volunteering. Requested, sure, and we do our best, but other than swim it’s never been “mandatory.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school and the kids' sports require a certain number of parent volunteer hours. All well and good. Before this year, it was by family, and now it's by parent, so double. Sort of still well and good, but DH has been deployed for the past month, and I'm now being told I have to to make his hours for the year as well. I'm drowning between regular life and now this. Just curious, how do your schools and sports teams handle volunteer hours, especially for single parent households, even temporary ones?

Wow - this sounds like a school or activity that I would not want to be part of. I cannot believe your husband is deployed and they want you to do double!! WTF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools and sports can’t mandate you to volunteer. They can suggest and encourage, but they can’t force free labor. Donate some money instead.

Well sure. Most ask you to cut a check and if you dont hit your hours, they cash it.

But its really crappy to not volunteer (which, to be fair, is not what OP is doing). Bc those jobs still have to be done. That just means somebody else steps up to do more.

And some of these positions are actually really important to the success of the event. Like score keeping, or timing, or stat keeping, etc. We're not just talking about taking the fees for parking or working the concession stand

I'm sorry but what is the point of paying tuition?

[Anonymous]

My daughter has joined a CLUB sport (in her case, rowing) at her local public high school where she attends school. This is distinguished from a SCHOOL sport (for example, soccer) that is sponsored and paid for mostly through public school dollars. As a club sport, the club is reliant upon parent volunteers to make the club a success. Everything, from the uniforms, to the supplies (in my daughter's club sport this includes boats, oars, and off-site storage fees, not to mention insurance, operation fees, and training equipment none of which is paid for nor supplied by the public school system). There is no extra money to "hire someone." So, yes, mandatory parent participation is a must. That being said, I would guess that since this two-parent requirement is new, your situation of a deployed spouse is probably not an issue that the organizers had considered. In your case, everyone needs to agree that we are all doing our best, including the people who came up with the two-parent participation rule, and alert the organizers to your situation. When your spouse is serving the country, I personally would consider this service to the club and one and done should be the rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has joined a CLUB sport (in her case, rowing) at her local public high school where she attends school. This is distinguished from a SCHOOL sport (for example, soccer) that is sponsored and paid for mostly through public school dollars. As a club sport, the club is reliant upon parent volunteers to make the club a success. Everything, from the uniforms, to the supplies (in my daughter's club sport this includes boats, oars, and off-site storage fees, not to mention insurance, operation fees, and training equipment none of which is paid for nor supplied by the public school system). There is no extra money to "hire someone." So, yes, mandatory parent participation is a must. That being said, I would guess that since this two-parent requirement is new, your situation of a deployed spouse is probably not an issue that the organizers had considered. In your case, everyone needs to agree that we are all doing our best, including the people who came up with the two-parent participation rule, and alert the organizers to your situation. When your spouse is serving the country, I personally would consider this service to the club and one and done should be the rule.

At least under VHSL crew is an unfunded varsity sport. Back in the day the TJ head crew coach used to make a big deal out of it. It's still state sanctioned, they just won't pay for it. It's not club.