Volunteering At South Park

As a family school, parent involvement is an essential part of our philosophy and community. The families of South Park dedicate many hours to the school thereby enhancing the education and learning environment for our kids.

With an open door policy, we value having the classrooms and whole school alive with parents participating and enriching our school community. As such, volunteering opportunities at South Park come in many forms.

The PAC’s Vice Chair of Committees is dedicated to supporting our community through the organization of committee/event chairs and ensuring adequate volunteers for all events. The Vice Chair of Coordinators’s role is to support classroom coordinators (who are the liaison for classroom volunteering).

classroom opportunities

Often families will dedicate what time they can to volunteering with their children in the classroom. Each division will have different needs and opportunities based on the class age and teachers desires/needs.

Some of the volunteering opportunities will be recurring and ongoing opportunities (e.g., library or art helper, weekly walking participant, etc). Or they could be special requests by the teacher (e.g., organize the bookshelf, accompany on field trip, etc). Other opportunities can be created by the families as special projects (e.g., clayroom projects) or other special learning hosted by parents in the classroom (e.g., learning SCRATCH coding). If you have an idea for enriching your child’s learning, talk to your teacher about how it could be integrated into the classroom.

Each fall, the Class Coordinator will have a list of the recurring volunteer opportunities for the class and parents can sign up for these at that time. Other opportunities will be shared with family by posting on the TWAAG, classroom board, sending emails, or by conversations with the teacher or Class Coordinator.

whole school opportunities

The classroom is a great place to spend your time volunteering and has a great impact for your child. However, there are also many opportunities to support the school as a whole. These opportunities focus on building a larger community and make South Park that much better. Our families really love these events and some are quite special to the children. Volunteering outside the classroom too helps you meet parents from other divisions and to get to know the bigger community.

Without the ongoing support and dedication of our families, we would not be able to hold amazing events such as the New To Me Clothing sales, the Emporium, Spring Fling, or Holiday Craft Fair.

Sign Ups for events are ever evolving and you can click the link to see volunteer opportunities and times. Any questions or concerns can be directed to our Vice Chair of Committees. To find more detailed information on events, visit our event listing.

requirements

Volunteering at South Park is easy! The teacher, CC, and PAC will do their best to ensure you are up to date on all opportunities.

However, for certain opportunities, you must meet certain criteria. To be alone with the children (e.g., in the class or driving to an event), you much have a criminal record check completed. This is provided free of charge and can easily be completed online. It is valid for 5 years.

In order to be able to transport children other than your own on field trips, you must have also completed a Driver`s Abstract and have the appropriate paperwork and documentation on file in the office. This information is requested each year to insure all documentation and insurance is up to date.

Both of these can be quickly completed in less than 10 minutes.

For up to date information on the requirements, please see the South Park Family School Website as this information will be updated directly by the school should there be any changes.