Classroom Coordinators...
A key piece of community building at Churchill

What is a classroom coordinator and why are they important?

The classroom coordinator role is described in our school council constitution.  However, we use the role description loosely.  The key piece of the role is that each classroom coordinator supports communication and community building among families in their class.

Here’s the official description:

Class Representatives: Class Representatives need not be elected Council members. The goal of the Class Representative is to help build community, connection, and facilitate communication among families at Churchill Alternative. The responsibilities are as follows:
a. Create and maintain a list of family contacts voluntarily shared among parents/guardians of their particular class.
b. Raise any relevant questions or ideas from families to CASC (Churchill Alternative School Council).
c. Report back to families in a timely fashion about School/CASC meetings and initiatives.
d. Periodically remind families about the various communication tools (board, school, and CASC).
e. As possible, actively participate in CASC forums (i.e., Churchill Families’ Facebook Group).
f. As appropriate, identify ways to build connections among families in the class.
g. Discuss the role with the class teacher to ensure support is effective.

Dec 2024: We're just in the process of updating a bit of the wording of this description to better reflect the role and take out some of the administrative bits!

Family contact list:

At a minimum, the classroom coordinator is responsible for creating and maintaining a family contact list for their class.  The family contact list is created during the first few weeks of school and includes the names of the students, parents/caregivers, and siblings and also the contact information for the parents/caregivers.  Families opt into this by adding their own information. We find most families want to sign up once they know about it.  

Why are the family contact lists helpful?

• They allow classroom coordinators (and our school council through the coordinators) to contact families directly.

•  They allow the classroom coordinators to organize events and initiatives… more on that below!

• Probably most powerfully, they allow parents/guardians to build community themselves. Do you know the names of the other learners in your child’s class? Do you know the names of their parents? What if you wanted to arrange playdates?  The family lists give parents/caregivers the ability to reach out to other families and coordinate among themselves… a big piece of building community!

In the past few years, some of the classes have not only created a family contact list but they’ve also created a WhatsApp group. While this doesn’t work for all families (as not all are on WhatsApp), it can be a pretty powerful community-building tool. 

Supporting the classroom teacher…

Finally, sometimes the classroom coordinator will support the class in other ways depending on what the teacher finds most helpful for their class that year.  One such example would be organizing parent volunteers for regular buddy reading through a simple google sign up form with follow-up  reminders.  Again, class coordinators are not expected to do this. However, if they want to help out in this way and the teacher would appreciate the help, they can be a great voice for encouraging family volunteering in the classroom as they themselves are a parent/caregiver volunteer.

Final thoughts…

Given the description above, the idea of being a classroom coordinator might feel daunting  buuuuuut the role can be whatever someone is willing to do. AND…. the role can be shared among multiple parents.   It also helps that we have one member of CASC that checks in with the classroom coordinators, passes on information from CASC, and is a sounding board for any questions or support they may need.

We are very grateful to those parents who take on this role each year to help build community at Churchill!