Volunteers Volunteers bring special talents to our schools. Volunteers come to school to talk to students about their jobs, listen to children read, help coach school teams, sew or paint backdrops, help out on field trips, make hot dogs for all the kids, and cook special meals with classes. At the same time, services in public schools have expanded as did employment of people to provide them. In various situations, conflict arose between the roles ascribed to employees and to volunteers. At the BCTF Annual General Meeting of 1986, teachers adopted a policy on volunteers that defines welcome and appropriate roles for volunteers in schools.
People volunteer for a variety of personal reasons.
We recognize, however, that a volunteer's first commitment may not be to the school and that career or family commitments may prevent them from helping on the day or time planned. Nor do we expect volunteers to be familiar with all the employer's rules and policies that guide us in our work. In recent years, we have all noticed fewer services in our schools. Volunteers have sometimes been asked to replace employees who have had their hours reduced or who have been laid off or who were never hired for needed positions. Often volunteers do not even know that the work they have been asked to do is part of regular duties of absent employees.