Hello, Home Room Parents for 2024-2025!

My name is Erin Harry and I am your Home Room Parent Coordinator for 2023-2024.  This is my first year to serve in this position, and I am thrilled to help our fantastic Caraway community of parents honor our amazing teachers and staff.  Please see some action items below to get started as home room parents:

Current Action Items:

• Sign up for the PTA if you haven't yet.
•  If you are a home room parent, let me know your contact info.

• Complete the RRISD volunteer application if you haven't done so.

• Email your teacher to schedule a meeting to go over expectations for your role in that classroom, and to discuss future parties, events, etc. 

• Request a class email list from your teacher. You can send an email of your own to your teacher or edit this one: Teacher Email Request. 

• Email your class parents introducing yourself and other homeroom parents (Fall Intro Sample Letter). Feel free to use as much or as little of this as you'd like, or write your own altogether.

• Teacher/Staff/HRP Pairings Take note of the staff member your class is paired with and send them an introduction email explaining that they are paired with your classroom this year.

• Check out Teacher/Staff Favorites to see your teacher's and staff person's birth dates and their personal and classroom wish-lists, including their amazon wishlists!  If you see that your Teacher/Staff did not fill this out please ask them to do so. 

• Request that your teacher completes an amazon wishlist for the classroom if they have not already.

The amazing Hospitality Committee will need the help of HRPs to forward emails and recruit helpers for a few events throughout the year that honor our teachers and staff.  This info will come as events near.

Thank you for volunteering in this role this year.  The teachers truly appreciate it, and you make a huge difference to our wonderful school! 

Erin Harry

Josie and Teagan's Mom

Winter Party Planning

Hi HRP Team!

I hope everyone had a relaxing and rejuvenating break!

Here's what to look forward to for the upcoming month. I've created a quick to do list for your use.

PTA Sponsored Cookie Exchange

Hospitality committee will be sending out info on this soon, but they should be collecting the last day of school before winter break.

Winter Party -Thursday Dec 19th
1. Schedule a meeting with your teacher to discuss plans for the Winter Party.

Themes are often decided at the grade level by the teachers. Specific party times will be set by admin and teachers as well

2. Plan accordingly with your HRP team.

3. Send Winter Party invitation to class parents.

If you have created a signup genius or equivalent to ask for parent volunteers or food or decor donations, include this link in the invitation.
Also, please include info regarding class gift collection.

 
4. Send invitation to your class's staff member(s). 

Discuss this with your teacher. Sometimes the teacher will incorporate creating an invitation into the lesson plan and deliver it to the staff person, other times the HRP will create an invitation with the children's help. If nothing else, an e-mailed invitation will suffice!

Class Gifts

We are asking that there only be 2 class gifts per year to minimize the number of times parents are asked to contribute, Winter (end of semester) Party and End of Year Party.

Remember that collecting and giving money is optional.  Please do not mandate how much someone should give. Some parents choose to give gifts individually and will not contribute to the classroom gift, however class gifts should always come from the entire class not just the ones that contributed.  Please remember we come from a diverse school and many areas of the school are asking for money as well.  For some families even small amounts of money can be a financial hardship. 

    When to Collect Money

• Collect for End of Semester (Winter Party) Gift and End of Year Gift. 
• Give parents 2 weeks notice.

    Ways to collect money

• Paypal or Venmo Account
• Small envelope labeled "Homeroom Parent" put in each student's Tuesday folder.
• Envelope left in the classroom (maybe posted by the door) labeled "Homeroom Parent" 
• Check with your classroom teacher to see if they are comfortable handling money through student folders or a classroom envelope
• Do not ask parents to write their name on the envelope. Do not post a list of who gave and how much.  All contributions should be kept anonymous if possible.

Thanks for all you do!! I know this is a busy time of year so your effort is really appreciated! You guys are seriously amazing!

If you have any questions or need help, please reach out!!