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By Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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Date: 09/02/2005 |
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Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money. |
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Volunteering In Your Child’s School |
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Volunteering in your child’s school is another way to be in the school and to be able to see what happens there.
A real volunteer contributes a portion of his time for the benefit of others with no expectation of reward. However, there can be many side benefits for a volunteer. One gets to be around his child and the child's friends as well as many other children who will appreciate his help. There is also just great personal satisfaction in doing something for others.
Twenty years ago, Katy ISD did not want parents in the schools, and many of us had to fight to start parent organizations in the secondary schools. There were very few volunteers allowed in elementary schools. Once administrators realized what a resource interested parents could be, they began to utilize their volunteer services.
Personally, I am opposed to volunteering that amounts to what I call the "Three C’s." Cooking, collating and chaperoning are not my idea of what a volunteer in the schools should be doing. The district employs many clerical workers to do the collating, stapling, and cutting for teachers. Cooking meals and cookies for the teachers has truly gotten out of hand. And chaperoning at school dances and on field trips may be useful, but there is a tremendous responsibility attached to those situations, and I believe District employees are better suited for those tasks.
As a school board member, I often suggested that the untapped potential of mothers and fathers was a resource begging to be used, but that someone had to be capable of organizing those parents and utilizing their abilities. These kinds of volunteers could greatly enhance the academic efforts in our schools.
For example, teachers and librarians and volunteers spend a lot of time reading to the children. While this is a pleasant activity, it does not help the students much to learn how to read. The District even wastes an entire day in all the elementary schools bringing in the rich and famous to read to the students.
What a great service it would be if instead, those volunteers came for a day and listened to children read to them!
If you have spent much time listening to your own children read to you, you know that it is painstaking work, to say the least. But it is extremely helpful to the young reader to have someone who will listen to him and help him with his reading. Ask any kindergarten or first grade teacher how much time they are able to spend in this activity with twenty-two children in the room. Listening to young readers is essential for those students to learn and improve their reading abilities.
Fathers who have mathematical or computer expertise could give lessons in practical applications of math or computers that would spark interest in those fields. Many parents possess skills, knowledge and abilities that could be used to enhance academic learning.
The list of worthwhile uses for parental volunteers is endless. Volunteers should not just be used for menial tasks. They are worth so much more to the education of our children.
Usually you must sign up to volunteer through the parent organization at the school. Get involved and start somewhere. Once you have established yourself as a responsible person who is cheerful and willing to work, THEN make suggestions for change. You may or may not be met with a willing ear, but at least you can try.
In the meantime, you will be inside your child's school. As you will begin to see, being there is important. |
