Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Yes, This Could Work

Okay, we all live busy lives, some a whole lot busier than others. Women are employed outside of their homes. Time, along with money, has to be carefully budgeted so we can do all we have to do and/or all we want to do. But ask yourself this: could both husband and wife find one hour each to volunteer for their children's school? Could they find those two hours once a week? Once every other week? Once a month?

A school of 500 children might have around 150-250 parent couples in it. If each couple gave the school 2 hours even only once a month, that would be 3000 to 5000 volunteer hours per school year. What kinds of savings might a school realize with that kind of unpaid help?

They'd have to hire less clerical help because parent volunteers would be do copying work and non-time sensitive routine clerical work either at night or during the day or on Sundays. They could set up school computer networks and maintain them. They could set up school web sites and maintain them. They could do research on the latest in time and money saving techniques for schools. And yes, they could, in large groups spread out over the week, do routine maintenance and cleaning of the school. They could sweep up the outside grounds. They could plant any flowers in the spring. They could mow the grass on fields. Any contractors or electricians or plumbers among you? Their volunteer help could save lots of money. And if they are money specialists in a field the school needs, they could keep the books for the yeshiva--just why is it necessary to have a bookkeeper who works during the day? They could prepare payroll, and take care of tax payments. They could send out billing statements. They could, if they have the training, come in as adjuncts to give specialized courses in art or music or nutrition or health ed one or two hours during the week. They could certainly supervise any sports programs or teams. Any lawyers in the bunch? They could volunteer to handle contracts and legal matters for the schools. How about insurance specialists? They could research and present the best plans at the least cost for the schools and their personnel. You want to keep the lunch program in place? How about coming down one night and preparing the lunch to be served the next day? They could be rotating teacher's aids when such are needed or wanted. They could tutor students who need remedial help or for whom advanced learning is needed. They could be the ones who present extracurricular activities that use paid personnel now.

How much could those cumulative volunteer hours end up saving parents? Let's say that those 3000 volunteer hours replace 3000 paid hours over the school year. And let's say that those hours that are being paid for are "only" costing $10 per hour to the people performing the service. That would be a savings of $30K over the year to the school, for a cost of only 2 hours of volunteer service once a month. But we already know that some of the people whom the volunteers would be replacing make a whole lot more than $10 per hour. Have you heard of any accountants lately that take only $10 an hour? And plumbers? Any computer specialists? Any tutors? Any specialty teachers? What if we were talking $30 per hour? That's $90K in savings. What about $50 per hour? That's $150K in savings. Or look at it this way. If the school pays $30 to $40K per year per person for a bookkeeper, a few secretaries who do clerical work, a few teacher's aids and a few in-school resource people, people to run extra-curricular programs, sports included, a nurse or medical paraprofessional to do lice checks, your savings to the school is more than $150K. (Note: all figures used here are presumptive. It is quite possible that schools are spending far more than the figures I used, which would be an even greater savings.)

All on its own, volunteerism in the schools, whether truly volunteer or mandated by the schools, won't completely solve the fiscal problems that schools are having. But even 10 hours per year per parent of volunteer work would result in a nice chunk of money that schools won't have to spend. Is there anyone out there who can really, truly say that 10 hours over the course of a year is not a possibility for them?

27 comments:

leahle said...

I wouldn't have any problems and neither would my husband giving the school the hours BUT only if the money I save them goes to reducing my tuition and the other parents tuition.

Lion of Zion said...

most of the tasks you describe require some type of continuity to be effective. such high turnover--you're even talking hourly--can't work

Tuvi said...

Not the continuity so much Lion, although for a few of the jobs that would be an issue. It's having someone who would organize things in real detail. I could see having a parent who might give 10 hours in one month if that was when his skills were needed and then be off the rest of the year. But you'd need someone to keep track really carefully. And let's be truthful here. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to duplicate things. Why should we pay for someone to do that? And no continuity needed since any parent on duty could do it.

Orthonomics said...

As far as I am aware, most schools have a give or get program requiring that parents either work for the school or pay. Those receiving tuition reduductions certainly have this requirement.

I do think more volunteers could make a dent, but with no guarantee of lower tuition, I'm not sure you will get those who aren't already heavily invested. Those heavily invested already put in numerous unpaid hours.

Certain functions, such as payroll, are much better off being managed by an outside company, despite the cost.

The idea of cutting back on janitorial services and maintence services is intriguing. There are expensive private boarding schools where the kids do this type of work as part of their curriculum. At the very least, we could get kids to take more care of their own environment.

Anonymously said...

No reason why this has to be only 10 hours a year. It could also be 15 or 20 hours a year per parent. And for those jobs that need continuity maybe you could say 20-40 hours per family, and one parent could pick up all the hours if the job needed continuity. Even 4 hours a month is doable even for those who work full time. What? You don't spend at least 1 hour a week fooling around on the Internet? If the school could use it it's time better spent there.

But I agree with Tuvi that you would need someone with real skill to organize the hours.

re said...

Volunteer management is not easy. Just b/c a parent is a lawyer doesn't mean he/she is qualified to review the contracts in question, or is available at the time the school needs him, for example.

Effective volunteer systems require full-time volunteer coordinators and carefully structured programs to account for the variability in volunteering. Schools need to make an investment in volunteer infrastructure to get any benefits out of it.

Trudy said...

SephardiLady--those give or get programs for many yeshivas is not about volunteering time but about bringing in money from the outside. The schools that sell shopping scrip may tell a parent to either give $2000 or sell scrip to non parents for the $2000. They aren't saying give us $2000 worth of hours in volunteering.

I see a different problem with this than has been mentioned yet. If parents are going to be handling the business of the school, like doing routine bookkeeping and the like, then the school would essentially be opening the books to the parents. If parents are all over the school, at hours during the day and the night and on Sundays, then what really goes on in school is going to be known to the parents.

Given today's climate of secrecy that the yeshivas work under do you really think they would accept the huge number of volunteer hours if that meant that transparency was the result?

JJ said...

So, Trudy got it right. It's not about the skill needed to organize so many volunteers--that is doable. So are all the other things that some commenters say would be too difficult. It's about the yeshivas not giving over the jobs that would expose what they are really doing with the money they collect. With that many parents around their ability to control information would be lost. That they are never going to agree to. Parents to clean the toilets? Maybe. Parents to keep the books? Never!!

Dov said...

Good ideas, never going to work. In the game of yeshivas versus parents it's yeshivas one million, parents zip. They want your money not your time.

Ezzie said...

What SL said about "give or get".

Lion of Zion said...

SL:

"There are expensive private boarding schools where the kids do this type of work as part of their curriculum. At the very least, we could get kids to take more care of their own environment."

you mean teach spoiled jewish kids that it's ok to get their hands a little dirty? great idea.

Anonymous said...

Great idea, and not even so dirty. I attended 6'th grade in Israel (at MMD Moriah in Haifa) and every day, they would pull 2 or 3 students out of class to help prepare lunch in the kitchen. I loved when I was picked every two or three weeks, and I still love preparing meals in the kitchen!

Mark

Scraps said...

The year my sister was in twelfth grade, her class worked out an arrangement with the school: the students would clean the school on a weekly basis instead of having a cleaning service come in, in exchange for the school contributing money toward the senior class trip. The school saved money by not having to pay an outside service to come in, and the girls got money toward their trip. It really worked out nicely for everyone involved.

nmf #7 said...

I thought Give or Get was mandatory for most schools?

Lion of Zion said...
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Lion of Zion said...

MARK:

camp moshava was obligated to find a job for me one summer even though i applied too late for a position. with no open positions, they created a new one for me. part of the job responsibilities included being the camp garbage man. i can't say that i loved taking care of the trash for 1,000 people, but today it is still my responsibility to take out the garbage every night.

Orthonomics said...

Trudy-Give or get must have different meanings in different communities. Where I live, those who are on discount must volunteer.

Despite my calls for greater transparency, I don't think that the parents can or should take over the job of the book keeper. Besides issues of consistency, there are huge internal control issues. And, internal controls are already somewhat weak within many organizations.

Scraps-How large was your sister's school? I know it would be difficult to replace janitorial in a large school. But in a small school it shouldn't make more than a small amount of time for the students to break down the task.

Chaim B (of divrei chaim) pointed out to me that taking care of the facilities does have a mesorah in yeshivot.

ProfK said...

SL,
The schools in our area are like Trudy described. If you can't pay the full amount then you are required to raise that money from outside sources if you can.

Re the bookkeeper for the school, I wasn't suggesting that jobs be picked out of a hat. Obviously whoever would do the bookkeeping would need to have the skills to do so. Frankly, given the number of frum accountants in the world it shouldn't be all that difficult to find among the volunteers more than a few people who could do the job.

The problem with the volunteering is that in the more right wing yeshivas you would not have a large pool of skilled and educated parent volunteers to have doing the more technical or difficult jobs. When I came up with the examples of the types of things that volunteers could do I was looking around my own neighborhood and the pool of people that our local schools could draw from. We literally cover all the job fields here, with doubles and more in each job area.

Orthonomics said...

Of course once a dedicated group of parents are running the office, cleaning and repairing the school, and even tutoring/teaching, it might occur to them that with a large group of available basements, they might as well start their own school and nearly do away with tuition altogether. :) :)

Anonymous said...

i can tell you what was done where i went to seminary in israel; i don't think it would necessarily work for younger grades, but it could for middle and high schools here. basically, my seminary had no janitors or kitchen staff; they also didn't have very much money to give out in scholarships for those who couldn't pay. instead, girls who needed a tuition reduction washed dishes, mopped floors, and did other work around the school in exchange for scholarships. kind of like "work-study" in college. best of all, the girls who were doing this did so at times when no one would have to know who had to work to pay.
anyway, if there was a way to somehow do this in yeshivas, it could save the schools money, as well as offer tuition reductions to those who need it. it would also instill a good work ethic in the kids.

SubWife said...

As an accountant, I can guarantee you that volunteer bookkeeping will not work. In bookkeeping, you need continuity, and there's no way that 10-20 hour/yr will cover all bookkeeping needs of the school, any school, even the smallest one. And bad bookkeeping/bookkeeping mistakes are much more costly than hiring a bookkeeper (fees, penalties, missing receipts, etc.) In other areas, it might work, but definitely not everywhere.

Atara said...

There is bookkeeping and there is accountancy and they aren't the same thing. The day to day or week to week tracking of outlay and income does not require that someone with an accounting degree do it, as long as an accountant checks the books regularly. kSeriously, just what kinds of money do we think that a yeshiva handles? Even the large ones still equate to a very small business, and those small businesses don't have full time bookkeepers--think grocery stores and other small retail stores. A yeshiva needs 40 hours a week of someone's keeping the books? Where I once worked we did about $10 million of business a year and the bookkeeper came in once a week.

Mimi said...

I think we're getting hung up on the bookkeeping and forgetting that a lot of other jobs could certainly be done by parent volunteers.

Just curious, what jobs do the parents do now that are on the give or get? How many hours do they have to volunteer to equal the amount of money their tuition was reduced? If my kids' schools have this it's under the radar. I've been in the schools on occasion and I don't remember seeing parents around working. So what do they do to earn the tuition?

Orthonomics said...

The give or get could certainly be used more efficiently. I have seen give or get items advertised that are really more of chessed projects than give or get because the school wouldn't pay to have that done.

Scraps said...

SL - my sister's school is very small, both in size and in class size. I believe her senior class had five girls in it, and they still managed to clean the school. However, in a larger school (which presumably would have a larger facility) there would be far more students to divide up the work between.

Anonymous said...
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Orthonomics said...

I small size school with small classes I think would be the easiest to have students clean. Not a lot different than a family tackling their own home in a cleaning marathon.

Great to hear that these kids got down to business.