How Parent Volunteering Enriches Education and Community

In the elementary classrooms of my childhood, I remember that there was nothing cooler than your mom being the “Room Mom.” She was the person who organized our class parties, came to read stories to us, and stuffed our take-home folders every Friday afternoon. Our resident room mom seemed like a permanent fixture in our classroom, a part of school as expected as art class on Wednesdays or P.E. every Friday.

While the room parent role remains in action, opportunities to volunteer in modern classrooms have expanded. As family systems and the workforce change, the ways that parents and other adults volunteer in our classrooms shift too.

We’ve earlier highlighted unique ways to involve volunteers in schools, from running PTO meetings to preparing weekly materials. In my own classroom, I’ve had volunteers do everything from cutting lamination at home to creating paper mache planets with my students! 

Almost every teacher can tell you that volunteers are an invaluable asset to their classrooms. But, what does the research say about volunteers’ specific impacts on students and schools? Some of it might surprise you!

What does the research say?

Volunteers Build a Sense of Community

One of the biggest impacts volunteers have on schools is helping to build a sense of community. A regular volunteer is another caring adult that a child is eager to see each day. The relationships they build with students can create a deeper sense of connectedness and motivation, which consequently improves their engagement in school. While a volunteer’s presence may not magically improve reading scores, they might be a motivating factor to get students to school, where they have the opportunity to learn.

Classroom volunteers also serve as a vital link between schools and the local community. Classroom volunteers gain a unique perspective on their inner workings, the many hats that teachers wear, and the school’s needs. As a result, they can become community advocates, seeking out donations and garnering support from local businesses and leaders. They can also bring their own expertise to classrooms, sharing about their jobs and personal experiences. 

Long-Term Mentor Relationships Are Impactful

The research also shows that some styles of volunteering are more effective than others. Namely, in 2013, research from Bayer, Grossman, and BuBo show that developing deep, long-term mentoring relationships like those established by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America have a greater impact on students than other types of volunteerism.  The same study shows that creating some structure around the volunteering opportunities, like having a planned

activity, also has a positive impact on students. Strong relationships with a caring adult lead to increased self-esteem and school engagement from students, which has a rippling effect on students’ trust in their teachers and other school personnel. As the researchers note, “Not every adult can be a good tutor, but many of them could help students academically by being a caring presence” (p. 32).

Parental Involvement in the Classroom Improves Student Achievement

Some studies have shown that combining active forms of parental involvement, like volunteering in classrooms paired with working with their children on skills at home, have direct impacts on student achievement. Rebecca Marcon’s 1999 study of D.C. preschoolers and their parents found that children of highly-involved parents performed better on district report cards as well as on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale. Research by Leslie Morrison Gutman and Carol Midgley in 2000 determined that parental involvement may also serve as a protective factor against the influence of other elements, like low socioeconomic status, on academic performance. This is especially true when parental involvement is supported by a sense of connectedness to school or a positive student-teacher relationship.

Volunteers Free Up Teachers Do Their Work

In his 2000 article Do Classrooms Really Need More Volunteers?, researcher Brian Brent shrewdly noted that the volunteer’s role is to supplement, not supplant the role of the teacher or administrator. This is an excellent way to view the role of the volunteer. Some of the best volunteers in my Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms were there to provide behind-the-scenes assistance, like scaffolding social-emotional skills such as turn-taking and respectful communication during free-choice centers. With volunteers supporting students in this way, I was better able to focus my attention on academic small groups and assessments, which benefitted my students’ progress in the long run. Volunteers also provide teachers with necessary breaks by taking on duties like monitoring the lunchroom or supervising at recess. While there may not be research on this exact phenomenon, any teacher can tell you that a 20-minute mental/physical reset is vital to making it through the day! 

Developing School Volunteer Programs in the Light of the Research

Create an Ample Amount of Volunteering Opportunities

First, the opportunities to volunteer should be diverse. Some people may be unable to take time off work to volunteer as a weekly reading buddy, but can help in other ways, like taking prep-work off of teachers’ metaphorical plates. In my classrooms, this often looked like asking for biweekly parent volunteers to cut out lamination for my upcoming theme. I’ve also had non-parent volunteers help me assemble student portfolios for conferences! As you seek out volunteers, think about what you could delegate in order to free up some of your dedicated planning time. It may also be helpful to ask them how they feel like they can best contribute to your classroom! 

Participate in a Mentoring Program

Second, creating a strong, caring relationship with another adult can be pivotal for a young child’s life, and mentoring programs specifically have been shown to be effective in promoting academic success as well as positive self-esteem. Mentor-student activities can be as simple as setting out board games or sports equipment for the pairings to play with and bond over. Because this form of volunteer programming requires some additional screening for student safety, it might be helpful to partner with university volunteering groups or programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to get started. 

Make Volunteer Sign-Up Easy

Finally, to feel the deepest impacts of volunteering, schools must ensure that parental involvement is solicited in a host of different ways. Inviting families to decision-making meetings at the school, sending home learning ideas, welcoming them into the classroom as visitors, and communicating regularly are ways to actively engage parents in their children’s education. Researcher Karen Mapp defined this in 2002 as “the joining process” in which parents feel welcomed, their talents honored, and their involvement in their child’s education valued and celebrated. Sometimes, this is enough to heal wounds from parents’ own school experiences and build trust in schools as a whole.

Resources

The Importance of Parents Volunteering at their Children’s School. By Adam S. Weissman, Ph.D – CFI & WCF President and Chief Psychologist. Link

School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes
of Underserved Students Link (PDF)

Positive Relationships Between Parent School Involvement and Public School Inner-City Preschoolers’ Development and Academic Performance, by Rebecca A. Marcon Link

The Role of Protective Factors in Supporting the Academic Achievement of Poor African American Students During the Middle School Transition, April 2000, Journal of Youth and Adolescence 29(2) Link (PDF)