It will be $59.99 per month (per school - a school can have lots of parents who coordinate events at no additional cost). Schools would probably more than easily cover this cost via:
- Increased parent engagement and attendance at events, so events and activities raise more funds
- When a school can show reports validating parent volunteer hours an increasing number of companies make a donation to the school. E.g. for every hour of parent volunteer work the company donates $10 to the school. Here's one example of this listing some of the major employers who do this:
http://www.cando4schools.org/Company%20match.htm
- I've heard that some schools have been able to get corporate sponsors to donate not insignficant amounts using reports that demonstrate how many hours that parents are putting in. In San Francisco I have heard that Lowes hardware donated over $125k to a public school to renovate their gymnasium when it demonstrated parents commitment in this way. They didn't use Parent Booker, but Parent Booker's service hour tracking would help and likely present greater legitimacy to a potential sponsor
- The tight parent community it visibly creates can make a private school more attractive to prospective parents
- Parents who coordinate volunteers spend less time coordinating, so can spend more time doing volunteer activites
Of course this is an amount that a parent could choose to donate to the school. Some schools may reimburse this as an expense if a parent pays for it.
Then there's the whole issue of at many schools a minority of parents end up doing most of the volunteer work; others complain that they never know when volunteers are needed. The progress thermometer parents see when they login shows their progress against their annual hours target then immediately below they see a list of where volunteers are needed, filtered to be relevant based on the classes their children are in.
pbooker
www.parentbooker.com
Edited by pbooker - 11/16/11 at 2:02pm
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