To answer venzmama... The sign ups were done not quite one month prior to the event in both situations.The worse part is this mother is telling me that she signed up at the book fair and orientation and I didn't even have sign ups there. And we dont even have an orientation!! One other thing is I have no clue who this parent even is, their name is not on anything I have seen!!! UGH

We send home a letter with every student that explains the event and says if you are available to volunteer please return this form to school. That way we have proof that everyone was asked and we are not making tons of phone calls.

I'm not clear as to whether they sign up just before the event or way before the event. We have signup sheets at the PTO meeting the month before so it's fresher in their minds. But if you only have 4 no shows out of 75 volunteers...that's great. One contact should be enough, either by phone, email or letter. Then it is up to them to be there. Realize that some people will be always be negative regardless of what you do or how you do it. :cool:

Yes... To answer the questions I am being accused by fact that I did not allow parents to volunteer who signed up.Of course it's "my" responsiblity to go to their house and bring them to school in a limo with the red carpet treatment. Even if they never took any responsibility following up on signing up...I remember when I started if I dint hear i would call or go into school. YEs, out of 75 volunteer signups for events this year 4 were no shows and they were no shows that i could not make personal contact with.So they were never actually written on my schedules. But i didnt let them volunteer...according to one mom..UGH

The only thing I have to say right now (I want to think through my response about the volunteers), is Did I get those numbers right? Out of 75 you only had 4 no-shows? OMG!!! To quote Kathy Rigby and John Davidson, "That's Incredible!".

How did you end up "Not letting them volunteer?" Is someone actually accusing that? I don't mean rumor. I mean do you know this for a fact.

I think if you leave 1 messege on a machine that is enough, but definately not over 3 times. I figure you have better things to do than call someone repeatedly that is not courteous enough to return your call.

If I tried to contact people with no avail, I would assume (I know assuming can get sticky) they lost interest or had something to come up. I would tell them that too as an explaination on why I didn't want to keep harrassing them.