Teachers Brigade Programs

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Volunteer Coordinator

This nonprofit-organization and website has been created for people who have a passion to help Public School Educators in your community. You can use the forms as a tool to gather information about volunteers who would like to help at a particular school in your community. To do so, we know it begins by having a School Volunteer Coordinator. 

This position is great for a retired teacher who understands the importance of having more qualified adults to help with the school’s instructional program.  The first step is to find a principal at a school who agrees to have Teacher Brigade volunteers. We will contact you once we see you are offering to be a School Volunteer Coordinator. The coordinator advertises to recruit volunteers. 

As a Coordinator you will receive a packet of information and sample letters to help with recruitment. The coordinator keeps track of matching volunteers with teachers’ needs by working with the principal, instructional coach or reading specialist. We have used Facebook, Next Door, libraries, service clubs and free community newspapers to get started. We have found many schools do not have a designated Volunteer Coordinator and welcome this kind of support.  

The form makes it easy for you to forward and share with teachers once a volunteer helps in their classroom. We will forward the volunteer form to you once someone in your community fills out a form. (Zip codes)  Once you have a few volunteers you can begin by matching their expertise with teachers’ needs. The composition of your volunteers’ talents will guide you as you coordinate volunteers with teachers. 

The Volunteer Form has a menu of activities the volunteers mark and this is the tool you use. The school district will also want the volunteer to fill out the district’s volunteer background check form. We hope you will join Teachers Brigade and support the children who attend the Public Schools in your community. Public Education is the “heart” of our Democracy.  You will discover by lending a helping hand will enrich your life as well. 

Mentorship

Beginning teachers and teachers who are assigned a different grade level will benefit from this program. School Districts need a mentorship program where the mentor can work with the classroom teacher in their classroom on a weekly basis. This program is designed to support the classroom teacher without being evaluated by School District Administrators. We have researched what makes a valuable mentorship. The best kind is for someone to work beside a classroom teacher on a continual basis, develop a trusting relationship so a true dialogue can happen.  

Offer Help with Assessments 

A team of 4 volunteers can help a teacher with informal assessments. This might be individual kindergarten assessments or individual reading or math assessments. We have found we can complete a classroom in a 2hour time frame with a team of 4 people. 

Help Set Up and Maintain a Read-at-Home

 Program Children who spend time reading outside of the classroom daily improves substantially. However, this is time consuming for a teacher and a volunteer can help make this happen. The volunteer can keep track of the minutes or books read with monthly incentives. “The more you read, the better you will be. There’s no doubt about it… There’s no way around it!” 

Tutor Individual Students 

If you are a retired teacher, we would love to have you tutor a child twice a week.   Either during the school day or after school hours. The Teacher Brigade Volunteer Coordinator will contact you once a teacher suggests that tutoring would help a particular student. A parent will fill out the permission slip to begin this opportunity. Besides having materials that you would like to use, Teachers Brigade will offer a Raz-Kid subscription to you and your student. You will be able to use the on-line leveled readers and download them to make hard copies for your student. Raz-kids offer various tools to help you with your tutoring sessions.  

Help with Small Group Instruction 

By having another qualified adult helping with instruction can help maximize and individualize instruction according to students’ needs.  

Help with special “One Day” Events 

This is a great way to support the school when they have special events such as: Read Across America Activities, Kindergarten Roundup, Reading or Math Night or special One Day Activities. You may be a volunteer who would like to help occasionally but not on a weekly basis.   

Be a Book Fairy 

The Book Fairy can help during the school year, but this program is very beneficial as a Summer Program. We have discovered offering it as an eight-week commitment helps recruiting Book Fairies. You can make a difference in a child’s life by volunteering remotely. No need to know how to use a computer, when we say remotely, we are asking you to be a Book Fairy.  Research has shown the importance of having a Home Library. The Book Fairy helps make this possible. 

The Volunteer Coordinator helps the Book Fairy get started by working with a teacher who would like a child to have this opportunity.   Once a week a Book Fairy delivers a book to a child who could use extra reading support and becomes the child’s pen pal. Gently used books and printed books from Raz-kids.com are provided for Book Fairies to deliver.  A stamped, self-addressed envelope and Book Fairy Stationary is also part of this packet. 

A Book Fairy can either mail the packet or deliver it to their Book Buddy’s doorstop. Parents will fill out a permission slip. They will have the choice to allow you to have a 20minute Zoom session with your Book Buddy also.  Reading during the summer months is the key to fighting learning loss and maintaining a child's current grade level skills. When children are not in school, children and especially those from under-resourced communities, tend to lose roughly 20 percent of the gains they made in reading during the school year.