Volunteers
Thank you for being interested in volunteering with West Branch-Rose City Area Schools. Whether in your child's classroom, on a field trip, or with a parent organization...your help means so much!
Important Notes:
- Volunteer applications received immediately prior to an event may not be processed in time for a volunteer to be cleared for that particular event. It may take up to two weeks to process an IChat.
- By submission of the Volunteer Application, you expressly give West Branch-Rose City Area Schools permission to run a criminal background check using the Michigan State Police IChat system.
To become a volunteer with West Branch-Rose City Area Schools:
Use only one (1) volunteer name per application; each person needs their own form.
Volunteer applications must be resubmitted every school year, normally at the beginning of the year.
Application can be completed, digitally signed and emailed to volunteer@wbrc.k12.mi.us or you may print and submit once the buildings reopen in August. Take completed applications to the building secretary in your student's school for processing, or mail to:
Data Processing Specialist, Central Office
West Branch-Rose City Area Schools
PO Box 308
West Branch, MI 48661-0308
To digitally sign application download and save document BEFORE you fill in fields. Then open with Adobe, fill in fields and create and sign with your digital signature.
Volunteer Application - revised 4-3-23
Clarification of Volunteer vs. Visitor
The new NEOLA Board of Education policy #3120.09 reads:
VOLUNTEERS
The Board of Education recognizes that certain programs and activities can be enhanced through the use of volunteers who have particular knowledge or skills that will be helpful to members of the professional staff responsible for the conduct of those programs and activities.
The Superintendent shall be responsible for recruiting community volunteers, reviewing their capabilities and making appropriate placements. S/He shall not be obligated to make use of volunteers whose abilities are not in accord with District needs.
Any individual who volunteers to work in the schools or on any school sponsored activity shall submit to a criminal history records check, prior to being allowed to participate in any activity or program.
The intent of the board policy is that a distinction be made between a volunteer and a visitor.
A visitor can come to the school and obtain a ‘visitor pass’ to do any number of things with their child and under the supervision of current staff, for example:
- Attend a family event sponsored by the school for their child, such as:
Carnivals, festivals, field days, Terrific Kid presentations,
Sporting events,
Theater presentations, choir or band presentations - Attend a party in their child’s classroom (birthday, holiday or other)
- Join their child for lunch
- Attend a parent-invited dance like square dancing or the rain dance (but not be a dance chaperone)
A volunteer must have an approved IChat and, if they have unsupervised time with students or volunteer for overnight trips, potentially agree to an FBI fingerprinting. School principals and event sponsors are in the best position to determine if a volunteer is ‘unsupervised’ and if they wish to request fingerprinting, with the cost assumed by the volunteer and not by the school district.
An approved volunteer is cleared to come into the school and work in the classroom under the supervision of teaching or paraprofessional staff, to work in stations at an on-campus field day or to accompany students on field trips that happen off campus, and sometimes to actually drive students to events in private vehicles, if permitted. A volunteer may work with a student one-on-one with reading, playing or mentoring and under the supervision of current staff. A volunteer may chaperone at a dance.
The examples of volunteer vs. visitor are not all inclusive. The final decision rests with the building principal.
Thoughts About Our Volunteers...
“One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much I had in my bank nor what my clothes looked like. One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of school I attended, what kind of typewriter I used, how large or small my church...but the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.”― Forest Whitcraft
Those who can, do. Those who can do more, volunteer. ~Author Unknown
Volunteers don't get paid, not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless. ~Sherry Anderson
Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in. ~Author Unknown
A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.
- G. Thomas Gale
No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you. ~Author Unknown
Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart. ~Elizabeth Andrew
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
No man stands so straight as when he stoops to help a boy. ~Knights of Pythagoras
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale
Volunteers are paid in six figures... S-M-I-L-E-S. ~Gayla LeMaire
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~Leo Buscaglia
You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich man. ~Seth Parker
"Children are our most valuable resource." Herbert Hoover
Volunteers are love in motion! ~Author Unknown
"I continue to believe that if children are given the necessary tools to succeed, they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams!" David Vitter, U.S. Senator
If you want to touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. If you want to touch the future, touch a life. ~Author Unknown
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James