ROOM PARENT INFORMATION
Room parents can be a valuable resource for teachers and their classrooms. Your involvement in the classroom is really up to the teacher and how much they want to utilize you. Some teachers need you a lot and some, a little. You should get with your teacher as soon as possible to see what they might need from you.
Make sure to split up the responsibilities between all room parents so that no one person is overwhelmed with all the duties.
Contact Room Parent
Often there is more than one room parent to each homeroom so one contact makes it easiest for the PTO & school administration. The contact room parent will get a class list with emergency contact information for each student. This list is CONFIDENTIAL and meant for school related issues only! If there was ever an emergency in the school or the schools were closing early for an unexpected reason, the school would contact the room parents to get in touch with their emergency contacts for their classroom. The lead room parent also follows those items stated under the following “room parent” description.
Room Parent
A room parent is there to work as a team with all other room parents! Usually a room parent is in charge of organizing any crafts, games, snacks, volunteers, etc. for any celebrations your teacher might be having throughout the year. You may need to find volunteers for fun day or class trips. You may also want to set up one main contact between you (the room parents), the teacher and the parents for your classroom.
Snack Room Parent
Some teachers have selected “snack” room parents for their classes. This may be the case especially when the classroom has allergy students in it. A snack room parent would ensure that the snacks entering the class for celebrations comply with the needs of the allergy children. With the teachers’ approval, a snack room parent might discuss with the parent(s) of the allergy child/ren specifically what the student can/cannot have in the event snacks are to be brought into the classroom. As a snack room parent, the teacher may also prefer that you organize all community snacks that enter the classroom throughout the year.
ROOM PARENTS
General Info & Suggestions
ALL volunteers in the Swedesboro-Woolwich School District must sign a confidentiality agreement. Sometimes situations occur which must remain “in the classroom” and between you and the teacher/administration.
‼‼ Remember to have ALL correspondence to the class ok'd by the teacher. ‼‼
Room Parent Stipend
This year, the PTO is offering a $30, one time, room parent stipend for each classroom. Keep your receipts for purchases you’ve made for classroom celebrations, submit them to the PTO at one time, & you will be reimbursed up to $30 for the school year. Receipts must be received by Feb 1, 2010.
Letters to the Families
For your convenience, there are standardized letters that have been approved by the Board of Education and the Principal of each school that you may use to contact the families of your classroom regarding student directories and donations/volunteers. To access these letters you may go to the school district website www.swedesboro-woolwich.com and click on the “PTO” tab. If you plan to create your own letter, please have it approved by the Principal of your school before it is sent out.
6th Grade Room Parents may help students fill volunteer service time requirements by helping out at events such as Market Day Sales (our Market Day coordinator is Tracey Kerr (241-7497)).
Donations
Do NOT go broke organizing celebrations! There are ways to get help from the parents of the class to ease the financial burden of planning events. Request a monetary donation from the families in the beginning of the year to offset the costs of any activities you may have during the year (ex. 5 parties, $2/party per child = $10 per family). We ask that you limit donations to no more than $10 per family. Please keep in mind that not all families will necessarily contribute and we do not want to harass them since we do not know their personal situations. You can also ask for donations, such as drink boxes, snacks, etc. Try joining with other class room parents to purchase supplies.
Parent Volunteers
Send out letters to the families to ask if they are interested in coming in for events. This way you are not calling people who are not able to volunteer during the day.
Directories
Classroom directories are great! We can't just give out that information so you'd need to have each parent/guardian’s approval on having their child in your class directory. It’s good resource so parents’ don’t have to go through the school for personal things like birthday party invites, play dates, etc.
Room Parent Online Yahoo Group
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swroomparents
Group email address: swroomparents@yahoogroups.com
Go online to discuss ideas and questions with other room parents in our school district.
Thank you!
