Whether you're starting at a new school or heading back your old one, Back to School Night at your child's school is a valuable opportunity to get the lay of the land, find out what activities, clubs and other opportunities exist for your child, and finally, find out how you as a parent can offer your time to help.
With so many of us working, Back to School Night can be one of the only opportunities we have to visit the school, meet the teachers, check out the facilities, and hopefully even connect with some of the parents we'll be seeing on the sidelines at the local soccer game or trading emails and phone calls with for play dates and parties. It's pretty much the must go event of the back to school season. And as informative as it can be, with so much information coming at you, it can be confusing.
I like back to school night because the PTA knows this might be the one opportunity to connect with ALL the parents. At our school, as you enter the building and within each classroom, there are tables and tables full of clipboards asking for parents to sign up to volunteer as library volunteers, science volunteers, recess helpers, book fair and carnival volunteers, field trip chaperons, auction chairs, and more. It's great to find something you can fit into your calendar, however busy you may be -- your kids like seeing you participate and it really makes a big difference given current school budget realities.
My school has been using the clipboard table forever but now that computers are more common than transistor radios, we've decided to embrace technology and make the sign up process easier than ever by using VolunteerSpot. This also lets parents sign up even when they are not physically in the school building, by simply visiting the school website and clicking the 'volunteer' link. Starting this Fall, all the sign ups for our different activities at school will use VolunteerSpot, which has a neat functionality that allows users to create a URL link to the signup sheet, so users on email or visiting the school website or booster club website can simply click on say the 'Fall Carnival Volunteers' or 'Recess Helpers' link and the entire schedule is sitting there awaiting their sign up. Also, by doing sign ups this way (instead of a clipboard), VolunteerSpot also automates confirmation messages and reminders to the volunteers (especially helpful for people who sign up in the Fall for an event in the Spring)!
For schools with good computer setups, connected computers can be set up to the school volunteer sign up page so parent visitors can see that it's there and either sign up on site at school that night or know that they can visit at any time and grab a volunteer opportunity. For schools still embracing clipboards, VolunteerSpot makes it easy for committee chairs to turn those parent signatures into online assignments. Once entered into the online calendar, VolunteerSpot takes over with automated confirmation and reminder messages.
The easier we make it for parents to volunteer and sign up, the greater the participation level we will achieve, and isn't that what every school wants and needs?! So enjoy your Back to School Night and don't forget to volunteer!
