The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Mahatma Gandi

Being in education for many years, I have found there are so many individuals that do so much to help our students. Many of these individuals do not get the recognition they deserve. In fact, many are volunteers, or have positions behind the scenes that are critical to student achievement. It is my hope to shed a little light on these individuals that do so much for our students, yet often fall in the background, not garnishing much attention.

Volunteers help in schools because they feel deeply about supporting children in their free time and assist in many ways. Some may work from home to create holiday ornaments for craft fairs. Others may offer to read a nice book with a class of students. Some volunteers come to special events at the school to lend a helping hand or provide additional support to an after-school club.

One volunteer at Walden has offered to sanitize our Positive Behavior Intervention and Support tokens each month.

Others volunteer in a different fashion. The best example of this in schools are our Parent-Teacher Organizations/Associations. These individuals are underappreciated, mainly because many in the school community do not understand all of the hard work involved. Parents take on sometimes stressful roles in order to help each school. They raise much money through fundraising, which takes an incredible amount of time and effort. Parent groups decide how to best spend monies they raise, hoping the majority will agree and support the initiatives.

In all of the buildings I have had the pleasure to serve in, all of the parent volunteers do so much. Thousands of dollars have been raised and utilized to benefit our students and playgrounds have been erected at all of our elementary schools because of their hard work. All of the elementary school parent groups provide several family fun nights each year, an opportunity for our families to spend time with their children. In most cases, these events are free!

At Walden Elementary School, our PTO has approved a beautification project to begin this school year. They are planning to paint murals throughout the school, landscape the front lawn, purchase a backdrop for our portable stage, and build a Ga-Ga Ball pit in our middle playground.

The WES PTO also helps to sponsor field trips by donating money to help with the cost of transportation. They purchase pizza for our families to enjoy at our Family Math and ELA nights, leading to greater attendance. They support teachers with small grants to improve instruction. The list truly goes on and on!

Many of these expensive initiatives are ones that only a strong parent organization could facilitate. All of our schools in Valley Central have great parent groups who do so much for our children. I am hoping that bringing more attention to all that they do helps motivate others to better support our parent groups. At the least, I urge you to become a member of your school’s parent group, as this also supports students.

Thank you once again to our unsung heroes who do so much for our schools! It has been amazing to work with so many wonderful people who put others ahead of themselves. If you run into one of our parent volunteers, please say thank you for all they do! I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2020, and please continue to support our schools and students every way possible.

“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community to want to live in.”