Volunteer Policy
This Volunteer Policy is established to communicate the Parish and School's interest in the involvement of the parents, families and other members of the parish community in volunteer activities. The goal is to enhance the quality of the core educational activities and provide extracurricular programs such as athletics, lunch program, scouting, room parents, forensics, social and fundraising functions through the efforts of volunteers, rather than additional paid staff members. Through the creation of a Volunteer Program and policy statement, identification and engagement of the necessary voluntary participation of all school families will be achieved.
The extracurricular programs and activities currently in existence at St. Mary's School require in excess of 20,000 volunteer hours annually. It takes an average annual commitment of 32 hours of volunteer service from each school family to provide a base of volunteer hours to continue these programs. (Required concession duty for athletic program participants is not included in the expected minimum.)
The Home and School Committee maintains a position of Volunteer Coordinator to provide information on the volunteer opportunities available and coordinate assignment of volunteers based on expressed areas of interest.
Prior to school registration each year, a comprehensive listing of volunteer opportunities available for the upcoming school year will be provided to each school family. The volunteer form will provide information regarding the types of volunteer opportunities available and the approximate dates the service is required. In addition, the form will provide the contact person from whom additional information may be obtained about each program or activity. The form will enable families to indicate their commitment to providing volunteer service in indicated areas of interest.
In addition, the SMV School Committee and Administration believe it is important for SMV to continue its hot lunch program and to have our children safe and adequately supervised on the playground. We realize that these goals require seven parent volunteers during the lunch period. Parents are asked to voluntarily sign up for these important responsibilities at Open House in August. A school calendar will be posted allowing families to choose five dates (one per quarter plus one). If for one reason or another a family is unable to perform this service, an alternative would be to write a check to St. Mary's for $200. These funds will be used to compensate substitutes. All parent volunteers must have completed Virtus Awareness Training and have signed the Code of Ethics and Mandatory Reporting Responsibilities, verification which should be filed with Kathy Janusz, our parish safe environment coordinator.
All volunteers must complete a volunteer application, complete a Virtus Awareness session, sign the archdiocesan code of ethics and are subject to a criminal background check.
