Is this legal? Fee if you don't volunteer

[MSWR0319]

I'm on the board for our swim team. We are really struggling to get volunteers to help when needed. A few of us have done some research and found that many teams have a "fee" that you have to pay if you don't meet your volunteer requirements. I brought this up at a board meeting a few weeks ago, and the President said he thought it wasn't legal and that they had discussed it years ago (think 25+) and were told that. I know many of you have mentioned in other posts I have made, that your teams have this fee. So I'm thinking it can't be illegal, but am not sure where to check.

For those of you who have this fee, do you pay it upfront and get it refunded if you volunteer or pay it at the end? Because I've seen it both ways on the various websites I've looked at, and there's really no way for us to collect it after the fact. I'm sure people just won't volunteer and not pay the fee if we ask for it later.

[mom2binsd]

I know some local JFL football teams and PONY baseball teams have a volunteer buyout, so if you don't do your volunteer time at the concession stands you have to pay (and then they pay students to run the concession stands vs parent volunteers), so it's not illegal unless there is something in your states laws or the team policy and procedures. I believe the fee is up front. They also offer a buyout for fundraising.

Are you needing help with timers and people to do hospitality/food for officials (my DD swims).

The head coach should basically just state that the home meets will not take place without the proper volunteers to help out. We use a sign up genius, so everyone can see who is volunteering each meet (and leave it up so you can track who signs up). Not enough volunteers? The coach then assigns parents who haven't volunteered yet. I'm amazed sometimes at the parents who meet after meet sit in the stands vs timing (I prefer to time as it goes by quicker). If you have extra kids then do concessions or figure something out (it's part of being on the team).

[ahisma]

Is it a school team?

[SnuggleBuggles]

Our swim team holds a check (I think the fee is $250) and gives it back to you at the end of the season if you meet your volunteer hours.

[trales]

I belong to 3 organizations that charge you if you do not volunteer. Two take a check at the beginning and shreds if you volunteer, they both have lawyers on the board. The other charges you at the end of the season. The fees range from $200 to $500.

[MSWR0319]

I know some local JFL football teams and PONY baseball teams have a volunteer buyout, so if you don't do your volunteer time at the concession stands you have to pay (and then they pay students to run the concession stands vs parent volunteers), so it's not illegal unless there is something in your states laws or the team policy and procedures. I believe the fee is up front. They also offer a buyout for fundraising.

Are you needing help with timers and people to do hospitality/food for officials (my DD swims).

The head coach should basically just state that the home meets will not take place without the proper volunteers to help out. We use a sign up genius, so everyone can see who is volunteering each meet (and leave it up so you can track who signs up). Not enough volunteers? The coach then assigns parents who haven't volunteered yet. I'm amazed sometimes at the parents who meet after meet sit in the stands vs timing (I prefer to time as it goes by quicker). If you have extra kids then do concessions or figure something out (it's part of being on the team).

Yes. No one wants to sign up to work the meets. It's utterly annoying. No one signs up. We've tried the threat that there won't be a meet and no one cares. Last summer I did sign people up who wouldn't volunteer (and we used Sign Up Genius). Not one person complained, but I don't want to have to deal with having to sign people up at every meet.


Is it a school team?

It's a summer team, not a school team.


Our swim team holds a check (I think the fee is $250) and gives it back to you at the end of the season if you meet your volunteer hours.

This is what I'm wanting to do. I think $250 is a large enough amount that people will want it back. Of course one of the slackers on our board then says "Well, then maybe I'll just write you a check that will bounce." :banghead:

[MSWR0319]

I belong to 3 organizations that charge you if you do not volunteer. Two take a check at the beginning and shreds if you volunteer, they both have lawyers on the board. The other charges you at the end of the season. The fees range from $200 to $500.

Thank you for sharing!!

[daisyd]

We have this fee for another activity. We need to pay $150 upfront if we know we can't volunteer. There are some parents who don't pay and end up not volunteering

[TwinFoxes]

Our co-op preschool was NAEYC certified and charged if you didn't volunteer. There's no way it was illegal.


We have this fee for another activity. We need to pay $150 upfront if we know we can't volunteer. There are some parents who don't pay and end up not volunteering

How have they not been kicked out?

[ahisma]

I can see it being hypothetically problematic if it was a public school, under certain circumstances. A summer team? I cannot fathom how that would be illegal. You'd have to have it in the agreement at the beginning of the season, but otherwise - why not?

[georgiegirl]

Our team doesn’t charge. But one of the other local teams offers a buy out and does charge if you don’t volunteer. It’s completely legal if you put it in the parent agreement when you register. Our team doesn’t have an issue with volunteers. I know I messaged you with our team’s volunteer agreement. We host three meets a year, and parents are required to volunteer two sessions at each meet for one kid, and three sessions at each meet if you have more than one kid. The local team charges $25 or 30 an hour for volunteer hours. We did discuss it at a board meeting, but we didn’t want the option of paying since we didn’t want the rich parents to feel like they didn’t have to volunteer. But if we had a major issue with parents not volunteering, I’m sure we would Have made a policy to charge them.

ETA: I’m talking about year round USA teams


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[MMMommy]

Most gymnastics clubs charge a fee per shift and/or buyout fee for all shifts if you don't fulfill your mandatory volunteer shifts for the season.

[infocrazy]

One of my kids has an activity that raised the price and then offered a discount for volunteers. So it wasn't really an added fee but more and applied discount for volunteering. That said I think there were quite a few volunteers who didn't really do much. But this was just for 6 year old soccer so not as many jobs to do anyway.

[JBaxter]

Pretty standard around here. There is an up front fee you get it returned if you volunteer

[pharmjenn]

This is what I'm wanting to do. I think $250 is a large enough amount that people will want it back. Of course one of the slackers on our board then says "Well, then maybe I'll just write you a check that will bounce." :banghead:

If your intent is to entice the parents to volunteer, as opposed to using the money to pay for the help, a bounced check threat wouldn't really matter. Unless a lot of people bounced their checks, then the bank fees could get high, but most would do the work for their money back.

[HannaAddict]

We have never been involved in anything like this that required a fee or buyout. But obviously pretty common in some sports and parts of the country.


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[boilermakermom]

Our local swim team charges $250/season if you do not meet your volunteer hours. 3 season per calendar year.

Volunteer hours are 5 4 hour time blocks per season, usually two blocks per home meet. This is ultimately what ended up pushing us away from swim club. It became way too expensive. I often can’t find someone to watch my younger kids so I can volunteer, and DH work schedule often conflicts with the availability to volunteer. It didn’t make sense to pay a sitter @ $10-15/hr, so I could volunteer. DD was on the fence about quitting the team, this pushed me over the edge.

After factoring in the amount for not volunteering and monthly tuition for club, it was over $100/month for a sport DD was just ok about.

If you are considering adding a volunteer fee, try giving parents an option to pay a high school kid, etc. to work their hours. I would have happily gave cash to a high school kid, graduated high school swimmer, etc. to work my hours. Maybe meet in the middle? I would have saved some cash, they would have made some cash.

[TwinFoxes]

Yes. No one wants to sign up to work the meets. It's utterly annoying. No one signs up. We've tried the threat that there won't be a meet and no one cares. Last summer I did sign people up who wouldn't volunteer (and we used Sign Up Genius). Not one person complained, but I don't want to have to deal with having to sign people up at every meet.

This is what I'm wanting to do. I think $250 is a large enough amount that people will want it back. Of course one of the slackers on our board then says "Well, then maybe I'll just write you a check that will bounce." :banghead:

They know it's for their own kids, right? I think I'd be tempted to find another pool with more involved parents. We have the smallest pool membership in our neighborhood, and we still manage to get enough timers and S&T judges every meet.

[Dayzy]

Not a sport or club, but my friend's school (private school) has a yearly fee of $700 due by June 15th. However, you can volunteer to work down the bill. So if you do 4 recess monitor shifts in a month you get $20 off. Chairing an event gets you $150 off, stuff like that. Volunteering an event gets you $50 off. My friend's DH worked evenings in a restaurant so he was able to do the recess job a ton and got their bill knocked down pretty fast.

[magnoliaparadise]

I can't imagine it's illegal. As others have said, if this were a public school, it would not be right. But something that's not a public school? I assume it's fine.

We were in an organization that did this.

My daughter was in a musical - not school related, but a community theatre group - and parent volunteering a certain number of hours per session (ie a session matched a musical that would be put on by a specific age group) was required. There was a lot of language that made it sound not so bad - kind of like 'this is a community and in order to keep costs down and make this a great show, a requirement of each child's participation is that a parent or caregiver joins a committee'...

There was language that stated that the organization recognized that some parents had careers in which there was no time to volunteer. For those parents who did not have the time to volunteer and would 'rather donate funds instead of volunteering', the fee would be ... I can't remember, but I think it was steep! $150? $250?

Anyway, I did know one family who paid the fee (and happily). Everyone else volunteered. It was not so bad - kind of fun to volunteer when everyone is and it's a community feel.

[MSWR0319]

Our team doesn’t charge. But one of the other local teams offers a buy out and does charge if you don’t volunteer. It’s completely legal if you put it in the parent agreement when you register. Our team doesn’t have an issue with volunteers. I know I messaged you with our team’s volunteer agreement. We host three meets a year, and parents are required to volunteer two sessions at each meet for one kid, and three sessions at each meet if you have more than one kid. The local team charges $25 or 30 an hour for volunteer hours. We did discuss it at a board meeting, but we didn’t want the option of paying since we didn’t want the rich parents to feel like they didn’t have to volunteer. But if we had a major issue with parents not volunteering, I’m sure we would Have made a policy to charge them.

ETA: I’m talking about year round USA teams


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That’s right! I have your agreement saved. Thank you for reminding me.

To answer some of the other questions, we do give them the option of finding a replacement to volunteer and give them a list of kids who need service hours if they say they need someone to replace. We also offer options of donating food for concessions for parents with small children or other circumstances that prohibit them from volunteering. We have over 100 swimmers and there’s just no reason parents can’t volunteer other than they don’t want to. Our HS team only has 35 members and they never have volunteer issues. At this point, we’ve given them enough options that allow them to step up without being forced and I think a fee may be the only thing that kicks them into gear.

[mom2binsd]

Our old swim team put out a list of families that still hadn't volunteered, if there are lots of options like you've mentioned there's no excuse. Nothing wrong with making the list public, they know they are shirking their responsibilities and need to be held accountable.

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[MSWR0319]

Our old swim team put out a list of families that still hadn't volunteered, if there are lots of options like you've mentioned there's no excuse. Nothing wrong with making the list public, they know they are shirking their responsibilities and need to be held accountable.

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I like this idea!

[carolinamama]

Our summer swim team holds a check for the season. It is returned at the end of the summer if all volunteer requirements are met. I never thought about the legality but it seems fair since it's an activity we decided to join.

[LBW]

It's been a handful of years since one of my boys was on a swim team, but I feel like our team didn't allow kids to compete after a certain point if the parents didn't volunteer. We had to sign up for certain tasks/events when we signed up the kids, and then had to fulfill a certain number of hours by a specific point in the season.

[JustMe]

I cannot speak to the legal question, and haven't read any of the agreements mentioned, but wonder about dropping the term volunteer. No one else mentioned this, so maybe its just me, but I think of volunteering as something that is a choice/optional. I understand that there is a negative effect on the team if people don't make that choice, but it OTOH it sounds necessary for the team to function well. What about calling it mandatory parent hours? Or if you want to go with making requiring fees for those who dont contribute calling it mandatory parent contribution made either by hours put in or fee paid? As I said, that may be really off-base, but I think that makes things a lot clearer.

Maybe required is better than mandatory. Just realized it may not be legal to use either of those terms, though!

[squimp]

Our private school did this too. It was in the contract to the school. Some parents preferred to pay up front. If you didn't complete your hours you would be billed at the end of the year.

As one of the constant overworked, underthanked volunteers, I love this idea of applying it to teams.

[PunkyBoo]

Our private school did this too. It was in the contract to the school. Some parents preferred to pay up front. If you didn't complete your hours you would be billed at the end of the year.

As one of the constant overworked, underthanked volunteers, I love this idea of applying it to teams.My DS1's former private school did this too. This year he's at a public high school and plays for the marching band. We were given information at the end of last year what our "fair share" cost is. We can work off the cost by working bingo shifts, which is the band's primary funding source. I have been told that they can't ultimately enforce it because it's a public school, but it is strongly explained that working bingo is the only way to cover some of the cost. We continue to work our designated shifts, even as marching season is ending, but there are many parents who completely flaked out and it sucks for those of us that are doing our share.

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[Momit]

Our summer swim team assigns a number of jobs per family at the beginning of the season (usually 4 or 5 jobs). If a family doesn’t fulfill their requirement, they are fined ($150 per job I believe). Of course, it’s difficult to collect if they don’t voluntarily pay it - but we can prevent them from joining next summer until they have paid their fine.