Guidelines

In your applications, each of you agreed to this statement: 

By agreeing, I, the volunteer, hereby declare my commitment to Apple Tree. I pledge to treat my duty, other volunteers, and Apple Tree with the utmost love, respect, and dedication. Furthermore, I understand that failure to comply with the above statement can result in my dismissal from the program, as well as the forfeiture of any volunteer hours accumulated through Apple Tree 2014. I understand and allow the submission of this form to act as the equivalent of my signature.

The following guidelines are meant to help us all fulfill our duties in an organized and fair fashion. Please read these guidelines carefully for you will be responsible for knowing, understanding, complying and upholding them.


Attendance
Sign in when you first come in. The time that you get to the attendance taker will be the time that is taken down. That means that if you forget to sign in when you come at 8:30AM and you remember at 10AM, you will be signed in for 10AM.
Sign out when you leave. Do not ask someone else to sign out for you. Under all normal circumstances, full time volunteers should not be signing out before 4:30PM and part time volunteers before 1:00PM (if you've already talked to Jane or Josh, don't sweat it). Failure to sign out at the end of the day will result in 0 hours for that day. Lucky for you, each volunteer will be given 2 freebies.
Additionally, if you are repeatedly found slacking off, you will be dismissed for the day. All volunteers who stay until or later than 5PM will automatically be signed out at 5PM unless otherwise decided by either Jane or Josh.

Contacting Jane or Josh
If you have questions, concerns or any other issues, please contact us directly, whether by phone, email, Facebook, in person, etc. What we do NOT want is to be contacted by your parents. Please do us the courtesy of speaking to us directly. Thank you.

Dress Code
Please try to be modest in dress.
For the gentlemen, do not have your boxers hanging out all over the place. Also, your pants should be loose enough for you to squat down all the way.
Ladies, we don't like to see your underwear either. Do not wear shirts with too much cleavage and short skirts are not allowed. Additionally, if you choose to wear shorts, please make sure that they are long enough so that your fingertips touch the bottom when your arms are loosely hung by your sides.
Finally, shoes. You will be working with kids so closed-toed sneakers are recommended. Slippers are allowed, but this is your official warning: you are working with kids and accidents WILL happen. Painful accidents. Heels, however, are not allowed.

**Sorry for all the rules, but we have had some problems in the past. The general rule of thumb is just to dress modestly. If you are worried about a certain outfit, best way to go would be to choose something else. It just makes all of our lives easier.**

Leaving the Premises
Neither volunteers nor students are allowed to leave the premises from 8:30AM-4:30PM.


Relationships
We say this because it has happened in the past, but student-teacher relationships MUST REMAIN PLATONIC.
Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES will romantic student-teacher relationships be permitted. If it does happen, the volunteer will be permanently dismissed.

Swearing
We have zero tolerance for swearing around elementary school students. If you are in your classroom and you are a middle school teacher, some swearing is tolerable but PLEASE USE YOUR DISCRETION. Actually, that goes for all teachers.
The "f-word" is NOT allowed under ANY circumstances. I will say this again. Use your discretion.
We are implementing a 3 strikes rule. Each time that you are found using inappropriate language will result in a strike. Unlike in baseball, you will be permanently dismissed on your fourth strike (meaning that you have 3 freebies).

**Remember that swearing is very relative. For example, younger students may find words like dumb or stupid offensive.**