Parenting Tips for Volunteer Etiquette in School
Parenting Advice to Cultivate Professionalism in the Classroom
Jun 11, 2009
As a parent-volunteer, there’s a level of professionalism you’ll want to cultivate each time you enter the school. Here are five parenting tips that will keep the teacher begging you to come back.
Parenting Help for Professional Volunteers #1: Schedule Conferences Separately
As an involved parent, it’s difficult to resist discussing your child’s education when his teacher is right there. But, it’s important to remember that teachers are on a strict schedule with only a few minutes each day allotted for the crucial subjects of Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Volunteers who get a foot in the door only to get a few questions off their mind take away from their child’s instructional time as well as the learning time of every student in the classroom.
Teachers are more than happy to conference with parents. You’ll find the most productive conversations are those scheduled ahead of time and during several minutes when the teacher is free to give you her full attention.
Parenting Help for Professional Volunteers #2: Stay Focused
As an active volunteer in the classroom, you’ll often encounter times with more than one parent in the room. You can be the one to strike a professional tone by keeping your attention focused on your assigned task. Even parents who are working jointly to put up a bulletin board or sort papers will want to remember that a whispered conversation in the back of the room can be distracting to a teacher trying to engage an entire class of students. To avoid offending either the teacher or your fellow parent-volunteer, try suggesting moving the project to a place like the school work room.
Parenting Help for Professional Volunteers#3: Be Discrete
During those days you volunteer at the same time as other parents, it’s easy to fall into the trap of discussing other children in your child’s classroom. After all, the kid who’s picking on your child or the gifted kid who always gets straight A’s are naturally interesting topics on both of your minds.
Word travels fast in a school though. Even if you are whispering quietly in the work room, odds are the conversation will get back to your child’s teacher. No parent wants to hear that their child is being discussed by other parents, and no teacher wants to deal with that angry parent when she comes to address the problem. An important rule to follow on school grounds is avoiding unfavorable and even favorable discussions pertaining to other parents’ children.
Another area for discretion in your conversations with parent-volunteers while on school grounds are issues concerning your child’s teacher. Conversations comparing one teacher to another are never uplifting in a school environment. If you have an issue with your child’s teacher, you’ll get much better results by scheduling a time to talk about the concern face to face.
Parenting Help for Professional Volunteers#4: Dress Appropriately
On those days you’re scheduled to volunteer, show your professional attitude toward the responsibility in the outfit you wear. Be respectful of entering a child-centered environment. Low-cut blouses, short skirts, low-rider jeans, tank tops, or T-shirts with questionable slogans are definitely not going to impress your child’s teacher or the school staff. You don’t have to dress to the nines. A casual, modest look will blend right in.
Parenting Help for Professional Volunteers #5: Sign in and Sign Out
Another aspect of volunteering you’ll want to remember is signing in and out each time. It’s essential for schools to ensure their students’ safety by knowing exactly who is going in and out their doors during the day. Even when your face becomes a familiar sight around the building, it’s still standard policy for you to check in at the office each time you arrive and again before you leave.
Following these five parenting tips will help you keep your time in the classroom effective and conflict free. If you can foster this level of professionalism throughout the school year, you’ll be appreciated by your child’s teacher and everyone involved with the school. If you’re considering volunteering your time at your child’s school, you might also want to check out parenting advice for scheduling volunteer time and parenting tips to demonstrate respect for a teacher’s time and profession.
