School volunteers: what if one day no one raises their hand?

The Boston Globe ran a story earlier this week about parents who feel burned out with volunteer requests from their kids’ schools. I don’t personally feel burned out; I feel pretty well-balanced, but that’s because I’ve figured out (with five years of experience in the public school already behind me) exactly what the right amount of volunteer work is for me to take on.

I do sometimes feel like the system is a house of cards, though. And it makes me a little nervous, because I worry that if some of the parents who do far more than I do become overwhelmed, major systems could fail. I so appreciate their work, and I so understand the need for it – in many cases, they are taking on work as volunteers that the school can’t currently pay for, and I certainly can’t afford to see my taxes go up – but I worry sometimes that too much is resting on the shoulders of the volunteer network. What happens when people stop stepping to the plate in such high numbers? Many parents in Carlisle are either self-employed or stay-at-home moms and dads, but some have been laid off from full-time jobs. If unemployment gradually subsides in this region and more people go back to work, will there be fewer volunteers available for daytime needs?

Sometimes when I look at the list of names managing any one volunteer project at our school, I’m a little bit astonished at the acumen we’ve managed to gather. On the one hand, I’m impressed and grateful that the president of our PTA is a Princeton graduate with a master’s degree in teaching, the head of the School Building Committee is a highly credentialed civil engineer, a handful of parents who majored in drama in college are willing to direct and produce the seventh grade play, the head of the technology committee has successfully run several of his own start-ups, and we have at least three MBAs from top universities on our fundraising committee. On the other hand, it makes me feel both worried and guilty for those towns that don’t have this kind of brainpower or professional expertise among their parent body. The head of the School Building Committee, for example, might as well be doing a full-time job for the school for all the work he puts in – yet after he meets with the architects, designers, engineers and school administration almost daily, he goes off to his real job. What happens in towns that don’t have people with his professional talents, his flexibility in the workday, and his willingness to serve in this capacity?

What about the group I worked with last year on the fundraising auction, many of whom spent three months on tasks ranging from soliciting donations for auction items to selecting a venue for the semi-formal event to drafting the auction booklet to managing the software with which we run the financial side of the auction? Well, we were in luck, in the latter case: a new mother in town happens to have worked for several years for the public TV station that runs one of the biggest fundraising auctions in the country. She doesn’t even have a child at our school yet; her daughter was only three at the time, but she was still willing to help out. I sat next to her for most of the event as she ran spreadsheets and generated reports, and having seen it up close, I certainly can’t imagine running an event like that without her.

For myself, I’ve found a comfortable balance at the school. I sign up every year to be a room parent in one of my children’s classes, a job that become easier by about tenfold once the school eliminated refreshments from classroom celebrations. Mostly, as room parent, I send out e-mails from the PTA, and occasionally recruit chaperones for field trips or supply Popsicles for games day in June. Along with a friend, I also coordinate the school library volunteer program. Luckily for us, there are many parents who enjoy doing a weekly or bi-weekly library shift, so we’ve managed to cover the gap left when the library assistant position was eliminated by budget cuts two years ago. Once a month I cover recess/lunch duty for my daughter’s grade; I know I should sign up to do it more often, since coverage at recess is often insufficient and parts of the playground sometimes have to be closed to the children due to inadequate supervision.

I’m happy with what I do, but I’m intimidated by the thought that many parents do far more, and without them, major events would fail to happen. But I’m also frequently reminded of what a privilege it is to be welcomed at the school and to be included so warmly in the school community. Last week, I went up to do my weekly hour at the library. A little boy was arriving to school late, and his teacher, who knows me, asked me to bring him to the main office so that she could walk her students over to music class. It was heartwarming to feel so trusted. The office staff greeted the child kindly and showed him where to sign in as a late arrival. I signed myself in and then headed down the hall of the middle school to get to the library. It was between classes; kids were calling to each other, laughing, flirting, and generally knocking along the way middle schoolers do. I spotted my sister’s eighth grade math teacher, still in the same eighth grade room, still looking as enthusiastic about math as he did nearly 30 years ago. I waved to Tim’s teacher from last fall, back from maternity leave and surrounded once again by fourth graders.

It’s true that I don’t know how the school would manage without us volunteers, but it’s also a joy to be part of that system.