Parents Association Volunteer Opportunities

Admission Open Houses

Open House Evenings are the first activities of the Admissions Season.  Open House Guides greet prospective parents, guide them through an overview of classrooms, pass out programs, hand out Admission Packets, share their SFDS experiences and answer questions.

Volunteers needed.

Admission Tour Guides

Day Tours are integral to the admissions process.  Day Tour Guides lead parents through a tour of in-session classes and answer questions in between. Volunteers are invited to attend an Orientation in the early Fall and one or more Day Tours.  New Tour Guides are welcome and may shadow Veteran Tour Guides for as long as they would like.  The two hour tours are held from 8:30 - 10:30 am. 

Volunteers needed.

Annual Fund

The Annual Fund helps close the gap between tuition income and the full cost of educating a child at SFDS by soliciting a yearly donation from all of the School's constituencies. Volunteers are needed to call other parents at a lively phonation in November and to follow-up on these initial phone calls until we reach our goal of 100% participation. No experience is necessary.  This is a great way to get to know the families in your class and in other grades.

Volunteers needed.

Art Studio Volunteers

No art experience is necessary.  You will be working in class with students as a teacher’s aid.  In the Upper School, about an hour and a half per week is needed; for the Lower School, one hour to an hour and forty-five minutes. Volunteers will work the same day of the week, every week or every other week or either half the year or the full school year. We cannot always accommodate all who are interested, so those who can volunteer weekly or biweekly are given first consideration. We ask that kindergarten parents start with a class other than their own child’s. In grades 1-8 we try to accommodate parents' requests to work with their own children's classes. Volunteers attend an orientation the first day of school at drop-off time. The Art Studio Chair helps organize refreshments for the Art Show in May as well as helping to install work for the show. The Art Show preparation begins two to three weeks in advance.

Co-chair: Claudia Jofre (4).  Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Communications Committee

As our Parents Association evolves we are experimenting with traditional and new kinds of communication to better serve our community.  Next year we will have an electronic newsletter as well as online community site for parent information sharing and idea exchange (SFDS 411!).  We need forward-thinking volunteers who would like to be a part of this new communication frontier.  Specifically we need:

Newsletter Editor & Writers:  We need volunteers who have writing or publication experience to help write and produce a monthly newsletter.
   
Online Community Moderator:  This person will keep an eye on our community site and insure that guidelines are adhered to.   

Marketers:  We need volunteers to help with getting the word out about our new communications.  This might be creating flyers or lobby displays or anything else that you think might work.
   
Photographers: We need both digital and 35mm photographers to be clicking at Day School events, soirees, field trips and special occasions. Photographs will be used in our newsletters, online communications, as well as in some school publications.

Volunteers needed

Eighth Grade Play

Join in the magic of the theater!  Help the eighth graders put on their end-of-the-year production.  Volunteers are needed for each of these committees:  1) costumes  2) make-up  3 )set design and construction  4) program and posters  5) cast party  6) stage management  7) house management

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.  8th grade parents only

Escrip

Escrip is an important fundraiser for the Parents Association since the proceeds go directly to fund Parents Association activities such as Parent Education and the Staff Appreciation Dinner. One volunteer is needed from each class to contact and enroll families in their class in E-scrip.  Most of the work takes place at the beginning of the school year, as the goal is to get everyone enrolled before December.  After the initial push of getting everyone signed up, you will be the class representative for the E-scrip Committee, sending occasional e-mails and updates as needed to the group you are supporting. The hours are flexible and you can work independently via e-mail and phone.

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.

Fall Picnic

At this all-school event, held on September 21st in Golden Gate Park  we welcome new parents and faculty and catch up with old friends. Volunteer jobs include transporting equipment (food tables and booths for our student-run fair), set up, staffing the tables for our giant potluck lunch, staffing the sign-in tables, and cleaning up. The organizational work begins the week before school starts. Most of the volunteer hours are the day before and the day of the picnic. This is a great way to meet other families and work closely with the students who are working the different booths. 

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.

Family Photo Night

The Parent Committee on Diversity created this wonderful evening event to celebrate the many forms and meanings of family in our Day School community. Offered with the Library Party, families are given an opportunity to have their photos taken by an outstanding photographer and to spend an informal evening enjoying food and drinks with other Day School families. Volunteers are needed to help collect and hang some of last year's photos, organize the photo sessions, arrange for food and entertainment, clean-up the night of the event and to hang the finished photos.  The event will be held the last week in October.

Co-chair: Wendy Miller (4,2).  Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Grandparents and Special Friends Day

Grandparents and special friends spend a memorable morning visiting with their favorite student. This year's event will take place on Friday, February 13th --just before the start of Winter Break. Jobs on the day of the event include greeting visitors, photographing students and their guests, setting up and serving refreshments, and acting as classroom hosts.  Most of the work takes place on the day before and the day of the event, with some advance planning by a group of team leaders.  This is a fun opportunity to be a part of Grandparents and Special Friends Day, even though we cannot be special friends ourselves.

Co-chair: Frances Jue (2).  Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Graduation Reception

Join fellow seventh grade parents in planning the reception after graduation for the graduates and their families.  Most of the volunteer work is done from home a few months before the June graduation. Food, décor, set-up, and photography throughout the year for a photo collage are also part of this opportunity.

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.  7th grade parents only

Library Luncheon

Held in conjunction with the Library Party, this is a fundraiser lunch that also benefits the library.  The lunch features a talk by a featured author.  Volunteer assignments include promotion, invitations, set-up and clean-up.  This event will be held the last week of October.

Chair: Stacie Cherner (5).  Volunteers needed.

Library Party

This fun event is an important source of income for the library and is always enjoyable for the whole family.   Books are available for sale for your own collection, as gifts and for donating to the school library.   Preparation for the Library Party begins early in the school year and the event will be held the last week of October.

Book reviewers:  Read books over the summer, provide recommendations for the book selections, and write small reviews on note cards provided.  Book reviewers make great floor salespeople! 

Marketing: Promote the Library Party event within the School and the local community, including design of signage and flyers.
 
Food and Beverage:  Liaison with Family Photo Night and Library Party Chairs regarding food & beverage.  Manage food and beverages for the event including set up of refreshments and supplying food for volunteers.  
 
Event Floor Sales: Make recommendations, help find books (e.g. mystery books) and restock. 
 
Cashiering:  Manage check out process using bar code scanners and Macs.  Process payment by credit card, check or cash, and pack books for carry-out.
 
Set up: Set up tables, move boxes, arrange books by category.
 
Break Down: Box remaining books and break down tables.

Co-chairs: Nichole DeLeon (5,2), Ellen Towell (7,2).  Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Library Volunteers

Parent assistance is essential to the smooth functioning of our wonderful school library. Volunteers shelve and process books, help create bulletin board and book displays, and work extra hours during the library party in the fall, getting new books covered and scanned for inventory purposes. There is also an opportunity in the lower school to volunteer during library class time on a regular basis.   Parents are needed to help re-shelve books, read to the children, help them find books or with their library projects. There will be a meeting the first week of school to sign up to volunteer for a specific class. Working in the library is a great way to watch the children in action, learn more about the school, meet other parents, and make a contribution that has a very tangible impact on our kids' lives. An hour of your time makes a big difference to the library. This is an especially fine opportunity for K, 1st and 2nd grade parents to help the children with reading skills.

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.

LINC

This program welcomes new families into the SFDS community and makes sure they feel connected, supported, and comfortable in the fall.  Other goals of the program include building class unity for the Kindergarten parents early in the year and insuring that all new families get involved in school activities during their first year.  It can be challenging for families to enter the SFDS community.  It can be even more challenging to who change schools or are new to San Francisco. To help with this transition the LINC Committee assigns an existing SFDS family as buddy family to each new family entering the school in grades K-8. 

The LINC family welcomes their new family to the SFDS community (and to San Francisco if they have relocated) by calling and writing the LINC family prior to summer break and then prior to school.
•    Facilitate introductions to others in the community.
•    Serves as a resource for answering questions regarding volunteer opportunities, sports, homework, school/class events, etc.
•    Hosts an informal play date at the end of summer or early in the school year.

Co-chairs: Anne Salinas (8,3), Janet Hall (8,5).  Additional LINC families needed.

Parent Education

This year Parent Education will take on a new role as a member of the newly formed Bay Area Coalition for Parent Education.  On behalf of coalition members, this group will bring in well-known speakers to the Bay Area for talks related to parenting. We are in need of someone to work as the SFDS liaison to this group. Of course, Parent Education will continue its popular Café Series moderated by our school counselors to discuss parenting issues more specific to SFDS.

Chair: Jackie Corley (7,5). Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Room Parents

Two parents for each lower school classroom and one parent for each upper school section are chosen in August.  The role of the Room Parent is to support the work of the classroom teachers, be a classroom liaison to the Head of School (via the Room Parent Council) and potentially be involved in the Parents Association Online Community communications.  Since this communication forum is so new, you will have a voice in how it may be used to help Room Parents and our community.

Responsibilities to support the classroom include recruiting volunteers, coordinating parent volunteers, and insuring that classroom volunteer needs are met throughout the school year. Room Parents also plan and host an in-school potluck in the fall and coordinate the creation of a class gift to the teacher at the end of the year. There will be a meeting with grade-level teachers early in September to go over classroom activities that require parent support. 

Room Parents also are members of the Room Parent Council, a new forum created by Dr. David E. Jackson.  Members of the Council are each a liaison for their classroom parents to the Division Heads and the Head of School.  Council meetings will be held once per month. Both Council members and administrators may bring agenda items to the monthly meetings. The discussions are intended to be candid and confidential about issues of mutual concern.

Room Parents for All Grades Needed.

School Store

The School store sells SFDS logo merchandise to our community.  In the past it has been a Parents Association fundraiser.  Starting next year, the School Store will take an exciting new direction and be handed off to Student Council to run as a student fundraiser.  The goal will be give students a meaningful learning experience in what it takes to run a store like this – a business plan, product design, ordering, inventory management, marketing and bookkeeping.  The project will be overseen by an SFDS teacher, but we need parents who would be willing to be consultants to this group in any functional areas mentioned above.  If you have this kind of expertise we would love to hear from you!

Business and Marketing Consultants Needed.

Service Learning for Families

This committee works toward community service and family togetherness during non-school hours (though we also coordinate with the in-school service learning team as well).  Volunteers identify, organize, publicize, participate in, and supervise service learning opportunities for the entire family. We aim for at least two community service opportunities per month appropriate for ages K-8th grade and stress the importance of parents and children participating together. We prepare meals at the Ronald McDonald House, participate in citywide clean-up efforts at the AIDS Grove, Crissy Field, Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park, help out at the Food Bank and much more. Most organizing is done individually via e-mail with perhaps a brainstorming session in the beginning of the year. This school year, we would love to recruit more families for involvement and learn of the diverse community interests of all Day School families.

Chair: Lisa Neimeth (6,2). Additional Co-chair and volunteers needed.

Staff Appreciation Dinner

Volunteers plan, prepare, and host a spring thank you dinner for the faculty and staff. Jobs include coordinating volunteers and donations, preparing invitations, making phone calls, planning a menu, cooking, working during the event, and cleaning up afterwards. Other than finding a location in the fall, chairs begin preparations about two months before the event. Most volunteers put in three to six hours at home. Some work the night of the event preparing, serving and cleaning up. The dinner will take place in April.

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.

Staff Treats

This committee has earned the undying gratitude of the faculty and staff.  Members are assigned to bring in items for a breakfast, lunch, or dinner for the school staff.  You will need to deliver your food or drink to the faculty lounge on your assigned day. You will receive the schedule via email and no meeting is necessary.

Chair: Tom Scharffenberger (7). Volunteers needed.

Summerbridge Liaison

Day School Summerbridge is a comprehensive, tuition-free after-school and summer program that promotes academic excellence, youth leadership, and intellectual growth for students with limited educational opportunities in San Francisco. The teachers of the program are 7th and 8th grade students from SFDS, as well as talented high school, college and graduate students recruited locally and nationally. The two-year program inspires younger students to love learning and older students to pursue a career in the field of education. Summerbridge Liaison volunteers are needed to help with specific Summerbridge events as well as ongoing public relations and marketing efforts.  However, anyone who has some energy they would like to share with this wonderful program is encouraged to sign up – the opportunities to help out are varied and changing.

Volunteers needed.

Wine Crush

This event capitalizes on the strong interest in wine that we have in our community.  Did you know that several of our parents are in the wine industry?  Past Wine Crushes have had wine tasting tables, tasting events and seminars, but each year is a little different.  Bring your ideas and energy to create the next year’s Wine Crush!

Co-chairs and volunteers needed.