Community Hours (CH) scheme
One of Orana's key values is to provide accessible Steiner education to as
many families as possible.
To keep school fees lower than they would otherwise need to be, we
encourage parents as part of their enrolment contract to contribute some time
each year towards cleaning, maintaining or otherwise assisting the school.
These are our 'Community Hours'.
The scheme is also highly valued by the school because it provides a major
community building opportunity as parents meet and work together on projects,
working bees or other activities.
Orana's Community Hours scheme originally began in order to
assist the school in keeping fees down so a wider variety of income earners
could have access to this wonderful form of education. This was accomplished
by allocating cleaning hours to families throughout the school year to reduce
the costs of cleaning, which is a very necessary and quite costly part of
running a school. Community Hours has had many changes and much input from a
large number of families since its inception. The scheme now covers a
greater range of activities than ever before. Each one is as important to the
school and to all of us now as cleaning alone was then.
In the recent past the Community Hours scheme has been managed by the
school admin team. Recently a group of parents, including myself, has offered
to take over the coordination of the Community Hours scheme and the School
Council has supported this new direction. The Community Hours scheme helps to
keep us all involved with our school community in which all our beautiful
children are growing and thriving. We really appreciate your support - either
time or financial - for the scheme.
If you have any suggestions, queries or questions, please contact the Community
Hours Coordinator.
A CH Pledge Form must be completed by each enrolling family. The form
spells out the options available to parents at Orana under the CH scheme.
There are numerous choices covering work during school hours, after school
hours, on Saturdays and on Sundays, in-Term time and out-of-Term time,
physical and less physical.
Each of the seven categories of CH has a specific parent coordinator to
deal with organising work in that category. An overall record of hours pledged
and worked, money pledged and paid is maintained by the CH Coordinator,
currently the school's Operations Manager, Ian Stehlik.
Parents not wishing or able to work all or part of the hours required under
the CH scheme can choose to pay their community commitment contribution at
the rate of $15.00 per hour up to a maximum of $450 per year. Please note that
if hours are pledged but not worked, at the end of the year we will also
invoice these un-worked hours at the rate of $15.00 per hour.
For parents joining the school part-way through a year, the CH commitment
is calculated on a pro-rata basis for the remainder of that year.
Note that for families with very small children enrolled only in
"Pre-sessional Kindergarten" or "Sessional Kindergarten",
the CH requirement is halved, that is 15 hours or $225.00 per year.
Sole parents can also choose to halve their family's CH commitment. Please
contact the CH Overall Coordinator (as per below) if this is your situation.
The overall CH Coordinator is Penny
Cilento.
There is a CH Coordinator for each category of CH. Some Orana parents elect to be
CH Coordinators
to fulfill their CH commitment. The CH Coordinators - the contact person for each
CH category - organise the parent rosters and liaise with Orana parents doing their
CH.
Cleaning
Our new cleaning coordinator is Marie Bampton. Marie will be doing a
roster for cleaning. If you have nominated to complete your CH through cleaning,
please contact Marie to make sure she has your name down on the roster. If you
get left off your hours may not be recorded properly. Marie can be contacted on
6231-8915 or via email on mariebampton@bigpond.com.
**Blower Machine**
The school really needs someone to use the blower machine to clear paths and
walkways. This needs to be done 2 times a week. The hours are reasonably
flexible before/after school or Sunday night. Please contact Tim on tim.edmondson@oranaschool.com.
Bioscape
Tim Edmonsdson needs someone to move a length of drip line along the
windbreaks below the highschool and amphitheatre. This needs to happen 2 times a
day as often as possible during February and March. It could be done at drop off
or pick up. Please contact Tim on tim.edmondson@oranaschool.com.
Adopt a Garden
There is a new community hours scheme whereby you can adopt a section of
garden around the school. Ideally this could be outside your child's classroom.
At this stage this is a maintenance only program designed to allow the working
bees to take on bigger projects. Please contact Wendy Rollins to express of
interest molerollins@velocitynet.com.au.
Your CH pledge is 'rolled
over' automatically
Parents' existing CH pledge choices from the previous year will be
'rolled over'. If you wish to check what you've pledged or change it please
contact the CH Coordinator, Penny
Cilento.
See also
