Room Parent Info

CDA Owl
 

ROOM PARENTS

2024-2025

 

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A ROOM PARENT?


The room parent’s primary objective is to assist your child’s teacher with individual classroom needs and to serve as the communication liaison between the teachers, Booster Club and classroom parents. It is important to provide current information to parents regarding upcoming classroom activities, school events, and volunteer needs.

 

We recommend having at least two Room Parents per class but no more than four.  Please feel free to reach out to your Co-Room Parents to begin coordinating your efforts.  If you haven't done so already, please reach out to your teacher to let them know you are officially on board as their Room Parent.

 

If you are interested in growing your room parent team, please speak to other parents in your class whom you might think will be interested in working with you.  You may also speak with your teacher to see if anyone else has approached them to be a part of the Room Parent team.  

 

If you have any additions or changes to your Room Parent team, please make sure to email [email protected].  ASAP so that we may reflect those changes and ensure we keep everyone up to date on communications.


Discretion, privacy and safety are crucial to the Room Parent role.  At times you will be privy to information that is not for school wide consumption and your professionalism in maintaining a save and open working relationship with your teacher, RP leads, and school staff are key.  If you are uncertain about a topic and whether it should be shared widely, please consult your RP leads.

 

WORKING WITH YOUR ROOM PARENT TEAM


Our recommendation is to assign each member of your Room Parent team a specific job.  The task can be assigned based on availability or skills, it is up to each team to determine how to function.

  • Communications – this person will be tasked with sending out weekly emails and updates to your class
  • Treasurer – this person will be responsible for collecting, keeping and tracking class funds
  • Head of Volunteers – they will be tasked with recruiting volunteers for class needs
  • Some other responsibilities:
    • Class photographer
    • Class roster maintenance 
    • Class event planner

 

ROOM PARENTS RESPONSIBILITIES


  • Work closely with teachers so you are aware of their collaboration style and volunteer needs throughout the year.
    • How does your teacher like to communicate and how often?
  • Do they prefer to text, call, email or have conversations in person?
  • What tasks and projects will the teacher want you to handle for them?

  • We will be sharing classroom specific rosters by mid next week and updating them as families join our school.
  • Encourage families to opt-in to your class WhatsApp Group that we may build your classroom communication roster.  

  • Home bound communications
    • Create an email distribution list for your classroom including the parents/guardians of all children in your classroom. 
    • Determine the content for your weekly home bound communications
      • Linked please find a great email format to use as your weekly communication
    • As a courtesy, please enter the distribution list in the BCC line when you send email to avoid the many response emails when people “reply all”.

  • Collect and track class funds (different than Enrichment Fund)
    • The suggested class fund amount per child is $75 for the entire year.  As Room Parents you are responsible for collecting, storing, and tracking your class’s contributions to the class funds.
      • Class funds are used for:
      • Class supplies
      • Teacher Appreciation
      • Holiday class gift
      • End of year gift
      • Teacher appreciation gift/celebration
      • Class celebrations
      • Class activations at school wide events
        • Event booth and activities
        • Class baskets
    • Provide parents/guardians a way to make their class fund contributions
      • Venmo
      • Checks & Cash envelopes
    • Tracking
      • Copy your class roster and notate who has contributed
        • Please make sure to respect people’s privacy, no-one but the Room Parents should know who has contributed and how much they have given.
      • Track your remaining funds by copying the Class Funds Budget Tracker spreadsheet and saving it in your drive

  • Recruit parents to plan and chaperone in class projects, field trips, school events class activations, classroom parties and end of year class celebrations. 
    • Ensure all parents are given equal opportunity to volunteer and that new volunteers feel welcome and included.
    • Clearly explain the activity and time commitment. Send reminder emails as event date gets closer to confirm your volunteers’ availability.
  • Recruit a parent or parents to take photos of various class events and activities. Share those photos with Yearbook committee.
  • Attend monthly Booster Club meetings. One representative Room Parent from each class must attend every monthly booster meeting to communicate Booster Club events and information back to parents as necessary. This also ensures a representative Booster Club body at meetings and a quorum sufficient for voting on Booster Club matters.

  • Encourage families to contribute to the Enrichment Fund. 
    • CDA is a very special public school that provides all its students enrichment opportunities beyond the basic education funded by LAUSD.  Thanks to the contributions of our families our children get to have a PE Program, Music lessons, Art classes, Gardening class, a school library that is open all day every day, Teachers’ Assistants and Instructional Aides, technology in the classroom and so much more.
    • The annual contribution ask per student is $1,500
    • Please be on the lookout for communications from the Enrichment Fund team for specific information regarding this year’s plans and incentives.

  • Please remember that is not your responsibility to know the answer to every question.  You should direct parents to the appropriate contacts to address their needs (reference below).

  • It is not within the Room Parent scope of responsibilities to deal with student-to-student situations, please direct parents to address such concerns with your teacher and only escalate to the principal if necessary.

 

CLASS ROSTERS


You should have received your official class roster.  Your class roster contains all the contact information from the families in your room.  Please make sure to share the roster with your teacher to confirm the names of the students on the roster are accurate.  Let us (Alex & Tania) know if there are any changes to your class roster so that we may maintain them and keep them up to date.

 

Please remember that the information families have provided is confidential and should not be shared with anyone outside of your room parent team and your teacher.

 

As you will see, for a lot of the entries, you have emails for parents 1 & 2, please make sure to include them both on your distribution list. (IMPORTANT NOTE: When writing emails to the entire parent group from your class roster, please always use BCC. Do not use CC and add email addresses for all to see.)

  

New, updated Class Rosters will be distributed the following week.

 

As discussed during our Room Parent meeting, if you’d like to create a sharable roster for your class, parents/guardians must opt-in.  You may create a simple form/survey asking parents if they are interested in sharing their information with the rest of the class and only share the contacts of people who have confirmed their participation.  The shared roster can be used for families to coordinate playdates, birthday party invites, etc.


  

ROOM PARENT COMMUNICATIONS


EMAIL NEWSLETTER

We recommend sharing information with your class on a constant basis, you may determine your cadence based on your class needs.    Linked please find a great email format to use as your weekly communication.  Unlike in the past, we will not have the ability to create an alias for your class email list.  Hence, please make sure to BCC your entire roster in your email distribution list.  The BCC will also help avoid the many response emails when people “reply all.”


WHATSAPP 

You should have received an invitation to join the “CDA Room Parent Community 2024/2025”.  In this chat you will have a sub-chat for your class.  

Your WhatsApp group will be the official forum for room parents to discuss classroom-related topics, share CDA information, plan class playdates, organize classroom activities, and provide information about any special plans for your teacher.  For participating parents, this chat will serve as a quick resource on questions relating to their respective classes and CDA.

** Please note that any information or discussions relating to official school business should ONLY be addressed by the school’s administration.

All parents must submit a signed “WhatsApp Rules of Engagement and Agreement” in order to be added to your class chat.  If they do not, please refrain from adding them to the group.

  

CLASS FUNDS 


As previously discussed, the suggested class fund amount per child is $75 for the entire year.  As Room Parents you are responsible for collecting, storing, and tracking your class’s contributions to the class funds.

  • Class funds are used for:
    • Class supplies
    • Teacher Appreciation
      • Holiday class gift
      • End of year gift
      • Teacher appreciation gift/celebration
    • Class celebrations
    • Class activations at school wide events
      • Event booth and activities (Spooky, Spring Celebration) 
      • Class baskets
  • Provide parents/guardians a way to make their class fund contributions
    • Venmo
    • Checks & Cash envelopes
  • Tracking
    • Copy your class roster and notate who has contributed
  • Please make sure to respect people’s privacy, no-one but the Room Parents should know who has contributed and how much they have given.
  • Track your remaining funds by copying the Class Funds Budget Tracker spreadsheet and saving it in your drive

 

OFFICIAL GIFTING GUIDELINES USING CLASS FUNDS


As Room Parents, one of our responsibilities is to manage Class Funds and field the many requests that come in for utilizing the dollars collected.  Part of your class budget allocation should include teacher appreciation gifts.  The ultimate goal is to ensure all CDA teachers feel appreciated and cared for, but we must ensure equity.  Hence, we have created the following guidelines:

 

December Holidays

  • Teacher: $100 – $150* 
  • TA & IA: $25-$50*

Teacher Appreciation

  • Teacher: $100 – $150* 
  • TA & IA: $25- $50*

End of Year

  • Teacher: $100 – $150* 
  • TA & IA: $25- $50*

 

As creative as we might want to get, please remember, cash is king when it comes to teacher gifts.

 

*Gift amount depends on your Class Funds.  We encourage to be as generous as your Class Funds allow but not to exceed the maximum gift amount recommended.

 

CLASS FUNDS: TREATS (INCLUDING LUNCHES FROM RESTAURANT FUNDRAISERS)

We encourage you to let all the families in your class know that they are welcome and encouraged to show gratitude and make your teacher feel special.

 

As a parent you may treat your teacher.  However, it needs to be something done by your family and not in your official RP position, meaning, not utilizing Class Funds.  

 

We want to avoid families feeling pressured to give for non-school sanctioned activities, so we ask that you make it clear if ever intending to gather a group of families to treat your teacher, that this is coming from you the parent and it is not an official request.

 

CLASS FUNDS: BIRTHDAYS AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS GIFTS

In order to ensure all teachers feel appreciated and not in any way slighted, we ask that you do not use Class Funds for birthday or special occasion gifts or utilize your official CDA email or Room Parent position to coordinate such monetary or significant gifting efforts.  However, we welcome you to utilize your CDA email to notify your classes of Teacher and TA’s birthdays or special occasions in case families are inclined to send a card, drawing or other gift.

 

CLASS FUNDS: BOOSTER HOSTED EVENTS

Please note, Friends of CDA Booster Club will officially host/fund a Holiday Luncheon, Teacher Appreciation and End of Year celebrations, with potential for 1-2 additional treats sprinkled throughout the year.

 

USEFUL DOCUMENTS TEMPLATES  

Intro Letter

Volunteer Assessment Letter

Get to know your teacher


 TO SHARE WITH YOUR CLASS

 

CONCERNS ABOUT THE SCHOOL


We know that some people might approach you with questions or concerns about different aspects of the school experience.


For fundraising, school events and volunteering opportunities please refer them to:


For administrative, educational teams, campus safety, campus hygiene, school staffing please refer to the following people:


  • Please contact the main office with any concerns our principal needs to be aware of. They will provide you with her contact information and, if needed, schedule a time for you to come in.
  • (310) 821-7813

Questions related to the classroom, lesson plans, teacher related concerns, student-to-student concerns, please write directly to your teacher.  Please be mindful that responses might be specific to a student/family and do not necessarily apply to the entire classroom.


 

LIBRARY BOOK BAGS


Please make sure your children bring their library book bags to school on our designated library day.  Our librarians cannot check books out to children who do not have their library bags.  

Determine how many children in your class need a Library Book Bag so that they may be procured, please email [email protected].


We’ve created the linked survey form to facilitate the process.


 

YEARBOOK PHOTOS


As we begin to host events and volunteer in the classroom, please make sure to upload your class and events pictures to our yearbook archive.  It is so fun to flip through the yearbook pages and see all the kids’ smiling faces as they enjoy their classrooms, field trips, class playdates, enrichment classes and our school wide events.


A link will be shared shortly. 

 

PLAYGROUND PARENT VOLUNTEERS NEEDED


We are looking for some parent volunteers to help on-campus playground duty at recess and lunch for all students in all grades!

Duties may include:

  • Help students to quickly establish teams and collaborative play.
  • Monitor team sports such as basketball, soccer, and handball during the 20-minute recess or lunch periods.
  • Help manage and make final decisions on disputes during team sports, such as if a player was out-of-bounds, off-sides, ball traveling, etc.
  • You will be required to wear orange vests for easy recognition, and you will have a whistle to call time-outs, fouls, etc. during gameplay.
  • Have fun with the kids!

Pre-requisites include:

  • Must be an approved LAUSD Parent Volunteer. 
  • Refer all discipline matters to the yard supervisor (please do not discipline the children yourself.)

Once you are an approved LAUSD Volunteer, you can sign up weekly or daily for "shifts"  through our sign-up genius, on whatever day or days you are available! You can sign up to assist any of the grade levels so check it out!

CLICK HERE to access the Sign-Up genius today!




ENRICHMENT CLASSES: MUSIC, VISUAL ARTS, GARDENING


Music, Visual Arts, Gardening and PE have started!  Every student will get to enjoy each enrichment class once per week for a total of 30 weeks.  Our enrichment teachers are:


Gardening:

Mr. Matthew Van Diepen


Music:

Mr. Rene Collins


Art:

Ms. Shelby


PE:

Coach Stacey Foxson

 

CDA CLASS T-SHIRTS


Class T-Shirts are now available in every color and size for $15 each.  Class T-shirts are used for spirit days, class field trips or whenever the CDA spirit hits.  You may order online 


Click here to buy!


TK-ORANGE
K-YELLOW
1st-RED
2nd-LIGHT BLUE

3rd-GREEN
4th-ROYAL BLUE
5th-BLACK

 

ENRICHMENT FUND


The Enrichment Fund is the direct giving side of CDA’s fundraising efforts.  The funds raised through Enrichment Fund help pay for our PE, Music, Visual Arts, Gardening, a full-time Library, TAs & IAs, Technology in the classroom and so much more!  


LAUSD does not fund any of these programs. Simply said, they cannot continue without your financial support.   Our total fundraising goal for this year is $312K to cover the costs of all the programs that make CDA special.  

 

HOW MUCH SHOULD WE CONTRIBUTE AND HOW DO WE DO IT?

$1,500 is the suggested contribution per child, we know that not everyone can give the suggested contribution, please give what you can! 



Contribute today!  

Via Check: bring a check to the school office (make sure to note CF along with your child’s name and teacher)

 

Please find out more detailed information on the Enrichment Fund attached.


FRIENDS OF CDA NEWSLETTER


Please check your email junk or spam folder to ensure you are not missing the Friends of CDA Booster Newsletter. It has been brought to our attention that some parents were not receiving Booster emails but later found them in their SPAM folder.