Vancouver Montessori School Parent Handbook: Parent Participation

Volunteering

There are several key ways that parents help the classrooms on a day-to-day basis. They are:

Purchasing and bringing in snack items (see explanation below)
Selecting library books for the classroom (see next page)
Doing laundry for the classrooms and kitchen (see explanation below)

These three volunteer opportunities are done on a sign-up basis. The sign-up sheets are located in the main hallway on the bulletin board. Although it is not a requirement, volunteering for each twice a year really helps things run smoothly.

Besides this, parents help out by offering specific skills they can share, supporting parent nights, attending parent & teacher conferences, and supporting fundraising events. We are so thankful for the wonderful help and support given by so many parents over the years!

Snack Volunteer

When you sign your name on a given week, you are offering to bring snack items in to be used communally over the course of that week. Leslie will e-mail you or give you a note in your family file folder the Wednesday preceding your week. Cooking is never involved. About four packaged items such as crackers, cheese, cottage cheese, tortillas, etc. will be listed for you to supply. VMS provides most of the snack items when we go grocery shopping each week, but the help parents provide is essential.

Laundry Volunteer

Because the classrooms use quite a variety of cloth items from small polishing cloths to large floor drying towels, there is a constant need for laundry volunteers. VMS has no laundry facilities. When you sign your name on a given week, you are offering to take the bag of laundry home for washing. It will be labeled with your child’s name and placed outside the front door by dismissal time. Please bring it back the next day. You should not have a laundry load every day! Two or three times in the week are what you can expect. We are so thankful for help in this area.