Value of School Volunteers at an All-Time High

For children struggling with math, fractions can be the tsunami after a series of huge, breaking waves. At Hamilton Meadow Park School, a volunteer who is also a certified public accountant stopped that storm in just six weeks, the time it took to help children master the complicated math concept.

Hamilton and six other Novato elementary schools rely on the Marin County School Volunteers, an organization that recruits and trains community volunteers for schools in need, to provide capable and reliable help during school hours. Part of their success can be attributed to the nine part-time staff members who regularly check-in with volunteers throughout their service to offer support and advice, and sometimes just to listen.

Suzanne Rush, program manager for the Northern and Central Marin areas, has been running the show for 11 years and looks forward to her calls to volunteers.

"I love my job. Every week I talk to people and hear their stories," Rush said. "People think they're going to go to the help children, and the volunteers end up thanking them for the volunteer opportunity."

The Marin County School Volunteers program started in 1997 with 20 volunteers in four schools. Today the program has more than 450 volunteers in 45 schools throughout Marin County, with 75 volunteers in Novato alone. Hamilton Meadow Park has the largest concentration of volunteers: 20 help in reading, math and science at the school.

A good majority of the volunteers are retired school principals and teachers, and others include mathematicians and business professionals. Volunteers commit to serve one hour each week, but most give an average of three hours. A few are there as many as 20 hours per week.

All volunteers are finger-printed, tested for tuberculosis and have their references checked. The first two are mandated by the state for regular school volunteers and can be costly for the participant; the last is often not completed by schools for lack of resources. In fact, schools often request community volunteers contact the organization first.

"Schools want them screened through us," Rush said. And not all are accepted. In her career, Rush has had to make "five or six phone calls to tell a volunteer that it's not a right fit. Kids always come first." 

Once cleared, Marin County School Volunteers require those donating their time to complete a four-hour training program before choosing among the schools that have requested assistance. "The orientation goes more in-depth of what it means to be working with children and what it looks like in the classroom," Rush said.

Volunteers can also choose among several optional training classes in reading, math, writing, spelling, workshops on discipline, working with English learners and social and emotional support. All training and workshops are provided free of charge.

The organization plans to offer these services despite losing a major donor this school year. The Marin Community Foundation rewrote funding guidelines to provide direct assistance to schools, and in so doing Marin County School Volunteers lost 25 percent of its funding. Training, workshop time and materials cost the organization an average of $350 per participant. Rather than cut training, however, the organization has minimized outreach efforts.

"We need volunteers, but we can't recruit," Rush said of the lost funds.

In addition to providing volunteers to Novato elementary schools, Marin County School Volunteers is at Novato and San Marin high schools. This year the organization started a pilot student volunteer program, training high school students to tutor students at Loma Verde and Lu Sutton elementary schools.

Parents are also invited to come to the orientation, held every Tuesday through March at the Marin County Office of Education in Terra Linda, where the organization is based.

There are plenty of ways each of us can help Marin County School Volunteers continue to serve our schools and children by volunteering, donating or simply spreading the word. I plan to attend one of the January orientations and look forward to sharing my experiences with you in future columns.