[blparent] Volunteering in your child's classroom

[Robert Shelton]

Thanks for this interesting post. It has been some time since my boys were
in school, but I remember that Linda, my wife, was extensively involved in
volunteer activities, and I was occasionally invited into the classroom as
well. I'd like to know to what extent these changes have happened in our
school district, and will try to find out for my own information. From my
own experience, I have observed that student achievement is well correlated
with parent involvement in the schools, and has been mentioned elsewhere, is
a good idea for other reasons.

While I'm not a big fan of NCLB, I have to wonder if the reason for
increased security might be the sad history of crazy people walking into
schools with assault rifles and committing mass murder. Also, while most of
us have fond memories of homemade goodies, safe not sorry is probably the
right answer when it comes to food safety.

Finally, if the school system is going to be paying paraeducators to teach
our kids, I don't have any problem with insisting on some level of
accreditation. Of course academic credentials don't capture everything about
a person's abilities, they at least establish a baseline.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter [mailto:bkpollpeter at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2016 10:14 AM
To: blparent at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blparent] Volunteering in your child's classroom

My son is only in preschool, but nowadays, schools rely little on parent
volunteers. The exception is when there are school field trips or specific
PTA activities. My mom has been a teacher for 30 years, so I've been given
an ear-full through the years, grin.

Not to get political, but since the No Child Left Behind Act passed years
ago, schools have cracked down on who helps and when. Teacher assistants, or
paraeducators as they are now called, are required to have degrees. This
used to be parents and people who enjoyed working with children but didn't
necessarily have degrees in education. Now, by law, paras must have at least
an Associates degree in education. They think a degree is necessary for an
assistant to be effective. My grandma, who had an eighth-grade education and
later received her GED, was a parent assistant when my mom was in school.
Today, she would be laughed out of the classroom. I'm only 35, but I
remember parents helping during class time with various things, and they
were just parents wanting to help out.

In the public schools, they rarely want parents assisting in the classroom
because we are not "experts," and do not have the necessary pedigrees to
teach in any capacity. They now think this benefits children. Blind or
sighted, it's not often a school will allow this kind of volunteer work.
Plus, with all the increased security these days, they don't want to rely on
volunteers much. They prefer few non-paid people are present on school
grounds, making it easier to identify who belongs and who doesn't.

Public schools usually don't allow parents to bring food prepared at home.
If you bring food for the class, it must be pre-packaged, whole fruit being
an exception. When it was our turn to provide a snack for my son's class, we
were told the usual info about no peanuts and stuff, but also, I could not
make something myself. It had to be store-bought and sealed in a package. I
remember when parents would make home-made goodies for class, but nowadays,
you can't do this.

At least in our school district, if you want to volunteer to read to a class
or give a presentation, you have to do it at the end of the calendar year,
as they prepare the next year's calendar. I can't, say, in the beginning of
the year request to read Braille books during October for Meet the Blind
month. I would have to ask in May for the following school year. Smaller or
private schools may be more lax on this, but the public schools are pretty
strict about this stuff around here. I asked my mom about it, and she said
yes, it's difficult to do some kind of presentation at a school without a
lot of advance notice.

The only real volunteer experiences I've had the opportunity to assist with
are field trips, and then, I'm expected to supervisor my own kid, but no one
elses. I usually ignore this and help regardless, which has allowed teachers
to realize I'm capable of doing it, but they usually don't think this at
first. I have to demonstrate it. And schools take fewer field trips then
they used too, especially in preschool, so even these opportunities are few
and far between.

As my son grows older, perhaps more volunteering opportunities will be
available, but in my experience, especially in public schools, they don't
seem as common these days.

Bridgit