Room Parent Responsibilities

Room Parent responsibilities include:

• Parties: Oversee coordinator and volunteer for each of the following parties: Halloween (snack only), Winter/Holiday, Valentine’s Day, and End of Year.

• Character Education Teacher Liaison: Solicit volunteers for this program.

• Class Photographer: If possible take pictures at parties and events and upload to location designated by the advancement office.

• Holiday Gifts: Purchase holiday gifts and cards for teachers and specialists.

• Field Trips: Coordinate drivers and chaperones for field trips as needed.

• Communications: Send weekly class announcements including announcements or updates from the teacher(s), reminders for the classroom parents, update class specific Google calendar, etc.

• Treasurer: Prepare budget and manage class funds, including obtaining contributions and issuing reimbursements.

• Pre-K & 4th Grade – Coordinate your assigned graduation event.

• 1st Grade- Provide food reception for Grandparents Day.

• In Class Birthdays: Oversee monthly birthday celebrations.  Manage parent volunteers and ensure every month has a birthday coordinator.

• Teacher/Specialist Birthdays: Coordinate celebration of teachers’ birthdays, select day/time for celebration, make/purchase cake and serving items, purchase and present gift and card.

• Auction Project: Recruit parent volunteer to oversee auction project.  Help come up with ideas and oversee project creations.  Coordinate with auction chair to have project displayed and delivered as needed.

• Literature/Foreign Language Luncheon:  Oversee luncheon festivities. Recruit and manage parent volunteers to purchase, prepare and serve food.  Class expenses are reimbursed by the school..

• Employee Appreciation Breakfast: Plan theme, food, decorations, etc. for breakfast and coordinate parents to provide food items, set up, serve and clean up.

• Back to School Night: Introduce room parents at back to school night, explain budget, give brief overview of the year and parent requirements, have signup sheets for field trips, parties, auction project, etc.  Try to get all parents to signup early for these activities.

• Moms Night Out/Family Events: Plan Moms nights out or family events/get togethers (back to school get together, end of year celebration, etc.)

• End of Year Gifts: Purchase gifts and cards for teachers.

• Attend CSPA Meetings.

• (Pre-K and K) Classroom library reading: the Librarian provides signup sheet for parents to choose a date to read to the class, have this at Back to School night.

• (Pre-K through 1st grade) Holiday traditions: Check with teacher for details.

• (Kindergarten) Oversee coordinator and volunteer for Heritage Hour parties, provide signup sheet at Back to School night.

In the past, Room Parents have also enjoyed coordinating fun social events for the classroom families beyond those held in the classroom, e.g.: “Back to School” picnics or pizza dinners, either right before school starts or sometime around the first week of school and/or Moms and Dads “Night Out” during the year.  These activities are usually well received and families often look forward to these opportunities to meet other parents.

Room Parents are requested to attend C.S.P.A. meetings.  The meetings occur throughout the year and are calendared a month or more in advance.  It is a wonderful way to interact with other parents and to stay informed on C.S.P.A. issues and activities.  Please try to have at least one (1) Room Parent from your class attend each C.S.P.A. meeting so that they may pass on the important information from the meeting(s) to the rest of their class.

We are fortunate to have two homerooms per grade (except PreK) and though double classes tend to share activities and events, you are not limited to working exclusively together.  However, many tasks can be consolidated between the classrooms and coordinated by one parent volunteer or room parent.

Since we have three Room Parents per class, it is a good idea to divide up the duties assigned to each class and meet or email frequently.  Be sure to have one person designated to do communication.  This person will be responsible for weekly communication as well as the class Google Calendar. Be certain to inform your teacher who the communication person is.  This person is key for the teacher to communicate important class information to so that they may forward that information to the entire class.  Weekly updates of classroom activities and projects can be a huge help to your fellow parents.  The ‘communications’ parent should be proactive in speaking with the teachers, who are often busy planning lessons and responding to other important tasks that they might lose track of special events and the items needed for these things before hand.  This is a very important responsibility and untimely communication from the room parents elicits the most complaints about room parents. Therefore, the communication room parent needs to commit to sending communications as quickly as possible but not more than 12 hours after receiving instructions to send a communication to the classroom parents.

Meeting with Teachers

It is important that you introduce yourself to the classroom teacher during the first week of school.  You will need to arrange a meeting in order to learn the teacher’s specific needs.  Some teachers heavily utilize the Room Parents, while others, due to personal preference, age of the children, or other considerations, choose to limit the types of classroom activities that the Room Parents undertake.   Please be sure to familiarize yourselves with the school policies, and teacher preferences, regarding birthdays and holiday parties/activities.

We strongly recommend you confirm the following:

• Dates and times of all field trips (you will need to confirm these as the date approaches)
• Dates and times of holiday parties
• Birthday party preferences

Making these dates available at, or prior to, Back To School night will greatly assist you in having the assistance you will need.

You will want to be prepared to do a presentation to your fellow parents at Back to School Night after your classroom teacher has made his or her remarks. This is a good opportunity to go over the class fund budget, collect your class funds, discuss field trip and party sign-ups and if time allows, discuss auction project suggestions.   It is suggested that you have your sign-up forms available online and in hard copy so parents may sign up for classroom activities and field trips.

The communications parent should remind all the parents that ‘Back-to-School’ night in September is an event for the parents only.  Notifying the parents that sign-up sheets will be available (if you choose to do so) and suggesting they bring their date books and checkbooks will help you in having enough assistance for events and collecting classroom funds.