The most direct way you can improve your school is by sharing your knowledge with the students. You can volunteer for a parents’ day or offer to spend an afternoon teaching your child’s class a new hobby.
Not all class help needs to be direct and hands-on, though. If you’d prefer to not lead an entire group of students, let your child’s teacher know you’re willing to help with projects throughout the year. You can give the teacher more time to dedicate to planning and teaching by offering to take care of the little details, such as printing pictures, setting up a display or helping clean up after a class event.
School parent-teacher organizations (PTOs) are one of the best places to get involved and improve your child’s school outside the classroom. Through the PTO, you can help organize events to raise money, improve extracurricular activities or increase parental involvement. Along with other parents, you can schedule and plan ideas that teachers would be otherwise unable to execute.
If your child’s school doesn’t have a PTO, contact the school board or administration to determine what you need to do to start one. You may just need to find a few other like-minded parents and set a monthly or weekly date for meetings.
Even if you don’t have the time to commit to class projects or PTO events, you can suggest ideas to improve the school. If the school needs a new playground, for example, you can find out prices, local building codes and formulate a plan to make it a reality.
Don’t be afraid to suggest ideas without being able to follow through on them. Many times, teachers and other parents recognize a problem but can’t see a solution. By suggesting a way to solve the problem, especially if you can offer a rough plan of how to implement it, you can encourage others to reexamine the situation.