Room Parents

What is a Room Parent?

The Room Parent acts as a liaison between the Friends of SW Charter and the parents in your classroom. The Room Parent also works with the teacher on things he or she may need in the classroom. Being a Room Parent is a very rewarding experience and an excellent way to get to know the parents in your classroom. You can feel great knowing that you are alleviating some of the burden for your teacher.

Responsibilities include:

Identify yourself to parents by email or through the classroom Shutterfly website. I like to gather all the email addresses for the class (the teacher can provide this) and create a contact list. This way you will be contacting just parents in your class. With Shutterfly you may be contacting families from two classes (if your teacher shares the site with another teacher). When sending emails use the BCC option so emails remain confidential and there aren’t loads of “reply to all” emails.
Let parents know you will be their point of contact for questions and, if you don’t know the answer, reassure them you will do your best to find out! We have many new families this year and they need to know they can turn to you with questions.
Keep a close eye on your email; Nicole Rosen will contact you via email with order forms, notices and information to be forwarded to your community.
Give your parents a heads up that you will be organizing collective gifts for your teacher’s birthday, for the winter holiday and an end of the year thank you. You can find volunteers in your class to help with the shopping, card creating/ signing, etc. You will also need to gather funds for the class art auction project. What has gotten the best feedback is to ask for a minimum donation of $20 upfront to cover all four of these items, $5 for each. That should give you enough money (about $100) for each event. If you end up spending less on the art project or gifts earlier in the year then you will be able to put more toward the year end gift. Please see the teacher info teacher included in the room parent folders. These sheets will tell you about their likes and dislikes, etc. Here are the teacher birthdays. For birthdays in the summer, you can celebrate “half-birthdays”, or combine with the year-end gift.

Teacher	Birthday
Lisa Colombo	January 31
Raina Janke	February 20
Angie O’Brien	May 13
Nesa Levy	May 31
Emily Conner	June 6
Chris Wyland	June 20 (half b-day December 20)
Susan Hathaway	July 15 (half b-day January 15)
Elizabeth Thompson	July 19 (half b-day January 19)
Morgen Kelm	November 26

Find a volunteer to be the art auction project coordinator. Every class will create an art project for the annual auction which is the main fundraiser for the school. Those awesome works of art are in high demand at the auction and can raise a lot of money for the school! It may take a little work to get a volunteer, so it’s best to start looking early.
Let your classroom know, at least one week in advance, when it’s your turn to fill the snack basket. Create a sign-up sheet (ON SHUTTERFLY) asking for a minimum of three to four volunteers a week to bring nut free snacks in for the staff. The snacks are to be delivered to the office; there is a basket near the fridge. Perishable snacks or drinks can be put into the fridge, leave a note if you do so the staff knows that they can help themselves! The snack basket schedule is posted on https://friendsofswcharter.com/staff-snack-box-refill-schedule/. Here it is too:

October: Susan
November: Lisa
December: Chris
January: Morgen
February: Raina
March: Angie
April: Nesa
May: Elizabeth
June: Emily

Let your teacher know that you are able to help seek out and organize field trip chaperones, cleaning rotations, returning library books, filling homework folders, filing or copying worksheets. Work with your teacher to identify the best way to notify parents when help is needed.
Look for opportunities to get your classroom together outside of school. Organize park play dates, plan to go to a Valley Cinema showing together or out to Chapman School to watch the swifts. Ask your teacher if they’d like an end of the year party and help plan that with them.

The 2016/2017 Room Parents are:

Teacher	Room Parent
Raina	Rachael Stedman
Nesa	Moanna Wright
Angie	Nicole Rosen & Coral Thomas
Susan	Sarah Mutal
Morgen	Christine Bravo
Elizabeth	Sarah Gilmore
Lisa	Erica Bailey
Chris	JoLea Ulschmid
Emily