penguinsix

I had an interesting conversation with a British expat the other day here in Hong Kong. The subject was schools and when you look at international schools here you have a choice of going into a primarily British-based system or an American-based system (with French, German, Aussie and a host of others as well).

Curiously, for me at least, the debate was not focused on academics, but rather on the "level of commitment" expected from the parents. "The American school here expects you to show up for lunch with the parents day, field trips, reading day, what does mommy do day, math day, library helper, etc. It was just too much effort to have to goto the school two or three times a month to 'help out' with the class." I then asked another British expat who concurred that "it just took too much time as a parent" to goto the American school.

This is anecdotal so I have no idea if this is a cultural thing or just a one off associated with this particular school, but for those who have experienced both systems, are you finding you have more "to do" with the schools here than you do in the UK? Just kind of curious.

PalmTrees

I have had children in British and now an American school and I haven't found there to be any difference at all in the level of parent involvement. Both have had the usual Christmas and end of year parties that parents can help with, both invite parents on field trips and I have found roughly the same number of parent assemblies and occasional classroom events for me to go to.
In both systems there are opportunities to be more involved in activities such as helping with reading or working in the library if you want to but I haven't felt any extra pressure from the American school over the British school.

Hotscot

My wife is a high school teacher here in California...there's no expectation that the parents do any of the things you've listed.

penguinsix

I should note this was for primary school (grade K -> 4). Don't know about secondary expectations but suspect they're quite reduced.

Lbjen

It depends on the school and the area. Our last school was small and in an area filled with rich stay at home moms, there was a big social element to it for most of them. Our new school is way bigger and most of the families are two incomes, so they don't have the time.

Sally Redux

I didn't notice a huge difference. There may be more projects which require your input (and money) in the American schools. Our primary school in England welcomed help with reading, library, trips and so on as well, although they didn't have the official 'room mom' thing. A friend who is a primary school teacher in England tells me the parents run a lot of that kind of stuff via Facebook.

kodokan

Yes, I'd say that my daughter's elementary here wants more of parents than my son's UK primary did. They both want Helper Mummies for trips, and to provide a cake for bake sales, but the US school also wants a volunteer committee for a quarterly party, and then the other parents to pony up food and decorations for the party (had to send in posters and inflatable astronaut/ space shuttle last year), and they want library volunteers (which I don't do, as I'd have killed the librarian in the first week, being she tried to stop my child taking out books that are 'wrong', i.e. about Greek myths so don't reflect her fundamentalist world view).

I blithely ignore all of this. I send in cakes and the like, and do the odd Helper Mummy on a Trip thing, but everything else is done by a small army of Mormon mums, who seem to organise it all when at church socials. Which is nice of them.

My son's in middle school, and they mostly don't want any parents doing anything apart from the odd bit of fundraising. They're currently after library volunteers though, so I've put my name down for that. I find teens interesting and amusing, much more so than small children.

Pulaski

There are several dimensions to the question, and I can't comment on the difference between current state funded schools in the UK and the US, because I have had no contact with the British school system whatsoever for more than ten years, and mostly secondhand experience prior to that back to the time when I left high school, which was, er, a few more years back than that.

That said, my daughter's school, which is private, expects more (quite a lot more) contact with and input from parents than was expected of my parents when I was at school in the UK, and more than my sister's (private) school in the UK expected too. There are multiple volunteering "opportunities", which are not pushed too hard, and mostly seem to be taken up by the stay-at-home Moms. Both Mrs P and I have an employer that is supportive of "volunteering in the community" which covers helping out at children's schools, so we can both volunteer some time without having to take vacation time. Last year (kindergarten) all the parents were asked to go and read once during the year, and I expect that'll be the same again this year.

As I said above, I don't know how all that compares to the state-funded schools in the same area today, but what I do know is that in the smaller, often religious, private schools, there is a contractual obligation on parents to "volunteer" time according to their skills and qualifications: a secretary might be expected to put in so many hours per month in the office, a licensed electrician work on electrical repairs and maintenance, etc.. A divorced coworker is ensnared in this sort of "volunteering" with her EX-husband, who also has to commit to volunteer hours. All this goes to explain how small private schools can afford to charge such low fees - some barely charge enough to pay the teachers' salaries, though I know they also expect donated money on top of the fees and donated time. In short, "cheap" private schools appear to have a lot of hidden costs!

Yorkieabroad

I haven't been in the UK system for quite a few years, but my sister is an administrator in a state secondary school in the UK, I have a few teacher friends in state primary schools, and a friend is a principal in a private secondary school. All of them are amazed at the amount of volunteer time put in over here. I have 2 kids in elementary, and do around 10 hours a week in their school. I have 1 in Junior High, and didnt do any volunteer time thereafter all last year! I tried to volunteer on a couple of field trips, but they were oversubscribed for volunteers

I don't feel any pressure to volunteer...I enjoy it, although I have been approached a few years to run for PTA President and have firmly resisted that one!!

One thing that has started this last year, and is getting a bit of a push is "twinning" schools from more and less affluent parts of the district. Apparently there is a huge difference in volunteer hours put in in the different areas, (presumably a very close correlation to number of wage earners in the household) so they are trying, to divert volunteers from the schools that have plenty, to the ones that have less. Last year it wasn't a huge success, but they are tagging it early this year, and I expect to see a big push at meet the teacher next week.

Yorkieabroad

Can't find the figures for last year, but in our school district in 2011, when the student population was probably around 50000 ( now just over 60,000) there were a total of 718000 volunteer hours logged by 14000 volunteers. That struck me as being a high parent involvement, not just in terms of hours, but in terms of the number of different parents involved...more than I would have expected to be honest.

ChocolateBabz

There is often a call for volunteers but the "in-crowd" seem to have it covered, which in fine with me

kins

I haven't noticed a difference between UK primary and US elementary schools.

I work full time so I do zero volunteering.

N1cky

Huge commitment expected in the elementary school my daughter has just left. They used to break math class into little groups and have parents teach certain things, following the teachers guidance, to the group. Then Once a week a class put on lunch for the teachers, so you had to take something for that (frowned on if store bought, unless you could get dessert.) Silent auction both at the function and getting donations prior, back to school night, end of term fair, science fair, sports day, colonial day... Then the regular field trips, lunch, homework club, car park duty. The list just went on and on.

I always made sure I took food in when I was supposed to. Otherwise in the 3 years she was at the school, I managed to volunteer twice, and one of those was an evening event.

I sometimes felt like people were frowning at me, as I work from home, so picked my daughter up at the end of school every day in shorts and a tank. They just assumed I was a stay at home mum, so should be more than willing to do all these things.

LeavingLondon

My kids just started 1st grade today and after accompanying them to their class, there was a coffee morning with different stands displaying various volunteering roles - room mom, playground duties, school socials/fun days, etc. There's no expectation for you to do this, I guess there's generally enough people who want/are able to do it. I put myself down as room mom as I thought it'd be a good way to meet other mums in the year.

The boys also came home with a letter from class asking if we wanted to volunteer to drive on field trips/library duty/preparing class materials etc or if we wanted to present anything in class. I like the idea of getting involved to an extent (and I did at their UK school from time to time). Fortunately, I have the time and if it'll help my kids then great, but I'd rather help when needed rather than be in charge of a particular aspect.

Ash UK/US

Depends on the school, my kids go to a Charter Academy and parents are expected to donate at least 20 hours per parent per school year. Between my 2 girls class room, last year, I supervised lunch once a week in each one, sorted Friday folders (the stuff kids took home at the end of the week), I went on every field trip, helped with class party and went in a couple of times to make copies for the teacher.

At the local public school parents help at parties and nothing more.

This year I have a 2nd and 4th grader, my sister also has a 2nd grader in the UK she is not asked for any thing other than a folder for her sons home work, we get a list of things to provide for the class room... Anti bac wipes, paper towel, hand sanitizer, crayons, pencils, ruler etc.