The purpose of the Parent Service Agreement is to fairly distribute the work necessary for a successful school operation. It aims to involve all parents to contribute in providing a sound and enjoyable learning environment for all students and teachers.
New processes and tools are in place to empower parents to decide and commit to when and how they will complete the volunteer service.
1. All registered families are required to volunteer a minimum of 10 hours during one school year, and give two checks during registration. One check is to pay for the tuition, registration and PTA fees. The other check is for a $120 service guarantee deposit.
2. Towards the end of school year, families who have completed the minimum 10hour service requirement will receive a $120 service deposit refund check from SCS Treasurer. School will announce via school wide email for parents to pick up the refund check in the office.
3. If a student leaves school after the 4th week during the school year, his/or her parent is still required to fulfill the 10-hour service requirement in order to receive the $120 service deposit refund.
4. For those families who are not able to provide any volunteer service, a signature to authorize a forfeit of the service deposit is required at the time of registration.
5. Regarding the process of volunteer service scheduling and completion:
1) All families are responsible for job sign-up online via SignUp Genius, a safe and commonly used web-based tool for sign-up.6. There shall be no banking or carryover of service hours completed.
2) All time slots requiring volunteers will be available two~three weeks before the start of the next school year until the end of the 4th week of the new school year. Volunteer jobs and time slots are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
3) During the sign-up window, parents can update or swap sign-ups via SignUp Genius.
4) After the sign-up window is closed at the end of the 4th week of the school year, Parent Service Director will assign families who have not met the 10 hour requirement to any remaining slots. Pending on what’s left, the total service hours assigned may add up to 10~12 hours to fulfill the minimum requirement.
5) Upon completion of the job, the volunteer supervisor will log the actual volunteer hours completed.
6) Parents can look up the volunteer hours completed via school website, and are responsible for seeking clarification with the Parent Service Director should there be any dispute or question.
7) If a family is not able to attend a work shift they have signed up for, the family is responsible for finding their own replacement and informing the job supervisor or Parent Service Director 7 days prior to the shift.
8) If a family fails to show up for a volunteer work shift without finding a replacement nor informing the job supervisor / Parent Service Director, two hours will be deducted from the accumulated service hours of that family.
9) If a family leaves early or arrives late for a volunteer work shift without informing the job supervisor, one hour will be deducted from the accumulated service hours of that family.
7. An additional service of three (3) hours minimum, based on needs of your student’s teacher, is required of parents from Pre-school through sixth grade to serve in the class. This 3 hour volunteer time is to assist the teacher and does not count towards the required 10-hour parent service.
8. For more details about the volunteer jobs, responsibilities and number of service hours, please reference “Seattle Chinese School Parent Volunteer Roles and Responsibilities”.
This policy is approved by the School Board on June 10, 1997; with the first revision on July 29,2001; second revision on Oct 17, 2009; third revision on September 30, 2013; fourth revision on February 5, 2015; fifth revision on March 24, 2016; sixth revision on April 28, 2018.