Thursday, September 1, 2016

Family Involvement Volunteer Hours

Dear Creative Minds Families,

Welcome to a new school year! This blog post is to let you know of an important addition to our parent handbook this yearfamily involvement volunteer hours. (You also got a letter in your parent pocket with the same information.) Starting this year, we are asking each family to contribute eight hours per year. Many of you have already been volunteering from time to time, and we are so grateful for your help! We’ve found it to be a tremendous win-win whenever families have the opportunity to get more involved in our program. The children are proud of their parents’ contributions, the teachers appreciate the fresh perspectives and diverse talents you bring to the classroom, and our families feel more connected to each other and to the school. By adding this opportunity and expectation for everyone, our goal is to help every family find a meaningful way to engage with our school so we can all benefit from each other’s gifts and talents.

So how will this work? What do I need to do?
We are asking each family (regardless of how many children you have enrolled here) to contribute eight hours per year. That’s just a couple hours per quarter, and there will be a wide variety of ways you can contribute to our program, either here on campus or remotely. See our website at www.creativemindscdc.org/family-involvement/ for the most current project list at any given time. If there’s something else you’d like to contribute that isn’t on the list, we’re always open to ideas! Here are just a few samples from the list:
* Read a special book to the class and lead an art or sensory project related to it.
* Help with playground beautification or help build playground equipment.
Help with housekeeping tasks: change broken blinds, replace light bulbs, etc.
* Make felt/flannel board stories to go with some of our favorite books.
* Serve on planning committees for recruitment/interviews or facility design

But I’m seriously SO busy!
We realize that many of our families are working full-time and don’t have a lot of extra time to commit. This is why we are asking only eight hours per year, and why we have a mix of short and long projects and some that you can do from home on your own time. Also, anyone from your family can contribute. Parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblingsanyone who would like to share their talents is welcome.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at (408) 445-0101 or email Richa or Jennifer. We thank you for your understanding, and for partnering with us as we continue to grow and thrive together!

Thanks,
Richa Kapur
Director
Creative Minds CDC