I think it depends on the school and the age of the kids. There are things for sure that would only occur if parents volunteer,for example, any hospitality events to welcome new students. The extra enrichment events like multicultural night, art shows, and science fairs. The extra set of hands that you need to chaperone fiield trips.

There is also a big fundraising component. If you go to a public school, you can argue that some things should come from the county or will do so eventually. There also isn't necessarily a democratic process on how the budget is decided. I do remember small fundraising (remember selling candy bars) when I grew up but parents really weren't required to do much on this front. A lot of time the fundraising events are combined with community building event so maybe the iceskating event charges enough to cover the event and a little over or a parents night out at the school makes money for the school. to both raise the money and have events that the kids can attend outside of school takes volunteers.

The last area is classroom stuff. I am probably most ambivalent about this because I do think educational funding needs to cover the every day. It's one thing to volunteer to be the mystery reader for your child and another to have to find someone to fill in every day for a class aide, library aide etc. If the cuts are negatively impacting the classroom, the better fight is to try to restore that or figure out how you can pay for it or live with the consequences. Something essential being filled on a volunteer basis doesn't seem sustainable IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

enhance the quality of their school community.

We don't agree that you do.

Oh...so you mean that all those sweet thank you letters from kids, thank you notes and e-mails and and gift cards I've received from other parents over the years were all hoaxes?
I presume all the people who've come up to me after meetings and events to thank me were also impostors specifically hired by people like you to inject a nice touch of sarcasm into the conversation?

Anonymous wrote:

enhance the quality of their school community.

We don't agree that you do.

I am also wondering who "we" is. Do I agree with everything that every parent volunteer does everywhere in every school? No. But parent volunteers certainly can -- and do -- do useful, helpful things.

Anonymous wrote:

enhance the quality of their school community.

We don't agree that you do.

Who is "we" here? If you're a teacher, tell us that, and tell us what your issue is with parent volunteers. If you're a parent who has had problems with other parents, say so, and say why. Otherwise, your post is just useless snark aimed at the PP who actually takes time to volunteer at school. When did you last volunteer or otherwise do anything to enhance the quality of your child's school?

enhance the quality of their school community.

We don't agree that you do.

I go in once per week and work on "math stars" which is an extra math worksheet all the kids get. The kids come out to the hallway in groups of 5 and we go over it. There are usually two parents doing this each week. Each classroom has parents who do this. And I've done it for two years - 2nd and 3rd grades.

When my child was in 5th grade, I did a book club once per week. The teacher had about 4 parent volunteers (one was just a community volunteer I believe, not a parent of a child in the classroom anyway). We each had a separate group of kids who read a few chapters of each week and we discussed it.

I do random other volunteer activities as they come up - mostly chaperoning field trips.

I've volunteered for field trips, lunch room, recess monitor, and other various things, but not in the actual classroom since kindergarten. I do it to help the teacher and to be a part of the school and to show my child I care. I think it's important. Not every parent can or even wants to, but some of us can and want to do it.

HS teacher here. We use parent volunteers a lot during AP testing - they're allowed to assistant proctor exams that their kids aren't taking.

In addition, we had our first "career day" at school this year, and many, many parents volunteered to come in and speak to our classes (there was one "career" per classroom).

As PPs have mentioned, it depends on the age of students and context.

I volunteered for a short amount of time (change of job schedule meant I couldn't help anymore) helping kids pick out take-home reading- setting up the carts, putting returned books back in their correct place, making sure kids had the appropriate reading level and weren't duplicating books, and finally returning the carts to the storage room.

I know others help run the weekly classroom "store." I work mostly from home, but unfortunately can't commit to being at the school, so I've done stuff like make index cards for sight words at home at night.

Anonymous wrote:They are there to size up their child compared to the others.
They want to know which kids are disruptive in the class and they want to talk about that child to other parents.
They want to kiss up to the teach and try to get their kids extra favors, like reading at a school wide assembly.

]

Why on earth would you want that?

16:43 and 16:47 PPs, right on, and thank you for what you do in your kids' schools.

OP, what does "parent volunteer" mean in your child's school? Are we talking elementary, middle--? Volunteers' tasks vary widely depending on the individual teacher and what he or she wants.

Some want a lot of classroom help, some little to none; it decreases as kids get older, too, in terms of classroom help, and then parents are needed more for things like field trips, school events such as field day or (in our elementary) history days that were part of the history curriculum....Sometimes the office needs help, sometimes the library needs help. Teachers need to be spending their time on their classes, and parent volunteers can help free them to do more of that (and less of the needed but not skilled stuff, like stuffing weekly folders, or cutting out things for K classes etc.). Librarians also have teaching requirements and parents who shelve books and help check out kids' books help free librarians to focus on their lessons. The middle school orchestra trip, for a competition, that we just did could not have taken place without dozens of parent chaperones; three music teachers cannot chaperone 150 kids....

OP, what is behind the question? It's worded almost as if you're doing research, asking parents what they do and teachers if volunteers are a nuisance or a necessity. Maybe volunteers are a bit of both at times. Few of them are thinking of brownie points for their kids, as some on here seem to believe.

I was in my kids school a few weeks ago for a career presentation and then last week for a cultural presentation (it just happened schedule wise to be where those two things worked out - there was only one other time all year I've been in the classroom).
I know there was a parent in there helping with the class garden a few weeks ago, too. And there are parents who run the halloween party, thanksgiving feast, and holiday secret shop. Other than things like that, we don't have any daily or weekly volunteers who go in regularly.

Thank you, pp!

I have volunteered a lot in 1) the library and 2) recess duty. The school just does not have enough staff, so without volunteers in the library the librarian can't do all the class teaching and technology work she needs to do plus shelve and check out all the books every day. And without recess duty parents there would be even less supervision of the hundreds of kids on the playground. Nobody I know is there to spy or one-up anyone or kiss up.

Anonymous wrote:Waste of time and PITAs.

They pretty much run every activity in the school. From science fairs to fundraisers to fall festivals to field days to school 5Ks to GRACE Arts (some NoVa schools) to teacher appreciation luncheons to book fairs, to read-a-thons, to take home folders, to school gardens, etc.

Without these things your school would likely have no sort of school community or money for things like projectors in your kid's classroom. Your kid's teacher would also have no "room parent" as a point of contact when necessary.

Lots of hate on this board for parents (both working and stay at home) that take time out of their schedules to enhance the quality of their school community.

We stuff the weekly take-home folder

I don't like this if it includes homework/or tests returned.
Unless every take-home packet is the same, I wouldn't like a parent doing this job.