Being involved in your kid’s school life doesn’t mean you have to be the President, Secretary, and Treasurer of your PTA, PTO, or Booster Club. It doesn’t even mean you have to be at every single school event throughout the year. While it is proven that an involved parent often helps kids succeed in school, as a working parent, you may already feel overwhelmed and spread too thin. So that begs the question, how do you volunteer while maintaining a busy schedule?
One Busy Parent, One Calendar
It may sound obvious, but being organized is crucial. Being organized will take much of your frustrations away. For example, you may have separate calendars for work, family, and PTA, PTO, or Booster Club events. Although this may look more organized, it is actually more likely that you will double book your activities. Putting together one calendar will help you gauge your time and avoid compromising your schedule. After all, even as busy parents with many different activities to do, you are only one person.
Look at your tasks and prioritize activities and objectives by personal importance and deadlines. One task at a time with a calm and focused mind will get you further than attempting one hundred tasks at once.
Volunteer with Your Parent Teacher Group Once a Semester
As much as you may want to be the perfect leader of every committee your Parent Teacher Group has, it is absolutely okay to take a step back at times. Communicate with your fellow members and explain your situation. A busy schedule doesn’t mean you have to quit volunteering; the benefits of being involved in your community, your kid’s education, and having a support system of fellow busy parents is incredibly valuable.
To be an active member of your PTA, PTO, or Booster Club doesn’t mean you have to take all responsibilities on your own, but instead, simply participating when you can. Volunteering at least once a semester is a good way to stay involved without overwhelming yourself. That’s already twice a year, and more important than quantity is quality. Being able to give your work as a volunteer a genuine effort can make your work go from helpful to effective; not to mention probably more personally rewarding.
If you want to take on larger projects at your organization pick your task wisely. Choose one that you not only feel passionate about but think you can really be involved in.
Volunteering at Home
As much as you may want to, sometimes you can’t break away from your schedule. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t be involved.
Not all volunteering requires your physical presence. Ask your fellow members and volunteers if there is anything you can do “behind the scenes” of the event. Maybe you can start making calls for donations, writing your group’s newsletter, or sending thank you cards to donors.
How to Protect Yourself and Your Fellow Members
If there’s one thing we don’t need more of as busy parents, it’s more tasks and problems. Mistakes, miscommunication, or whatever it may be, sometimes things go awry. Should your PTA, PTO, or Booster Club have to bear the consequences alone? AIM doesn’t think so. That’s why we offer Directors and Officer Liability.
Directors and Officers Liability is designed to protect your Parent Teacher Group members, officers, and volunteers from claims or lawsuits that attempt to hold them personally responsible for accidents, mismanagement, misrepresentations, dissemination of false or misleading information or inappropriate actions that occur at your events.
Your Parent Teacher Group is made of more than officers, you have volunteers too. Unfortunately, volunteers can’t constantly be supervised. Missteps that often result from a lack of supervision can be a lot to handle. When the unexpected occurs, such as accidents, thefts, and lawsuits, your funds can be in danger. To protect your Parent Teacher Group, consider our other insurance plans below:
- Event Insurance if someone is hurt at your event and decides to take legal action against you AIM can help protect you
- Embezzlement insurance if someone runs off with your money, AIM will replace the missing funds
- Property Insurance will cover your property from fire, theft, vandalism, and more
AIM Insurance makes protecting your organization easy, affordable and most importantly, worth it.