Get Involved

In collaboration with ECS, the Parent Community Organization (PCO) offers many ways to volunteer. There are opportunities to fit everyone’s interests and schedules (including many at-home tasks that can be accomplished in your own time). Consider Joining a PCO Committee (below), visit our Events page for information on ways to volunteer for upcoming events or email volunteer@ecspco.org. See our PCO Committee lists.

Join a PCO Committee

A list of ECS PCO Committees is provided below.

    • Fall Festival (fallfestival@ecspco.org)

    • Gingerbread House (gingerbread@ecspco.org)

    • Family Game Night (gamenight@ecspco.org)

    • Ice Skating (iceskating@ecspco.org)

    • Kennywood Day (kennywood@ecspco.org)

    • Mini-Grants (minigrants@ecspco.org)

    • Staff Appreciation (staffappreciation@ecspco.org)

    • Staff Appreciation Week (staffappreciationweek@ecspco.org)

    • Lost & Found

    • Bake Sales (bakesale@ecspco.org)

    • Blooming Bash (bloomingbash@ecspco.org)

    • Uniform Re-Use Market (uniforms@ecspco.org)

    • Plant Sale (plantsale@ecspco.org)

      • Mum Sale

      • Spring Plant Sale

    • Book Fair (bookfair@ecspco.org)

    • Box Tops for Education (boxtops@ecspco.org)

    • Emily Press Labels (emilypress@ecspco.org)

    • Giant Eagle Apples for the Students

    • Yard Sale

    • Email Newsletter (newsletter@ecspco.org)

    • Social Media

    • PCO Website

    • Publications

      • School Directory (directory@ecspco.org)

      • Yearbook (yearbook@ecspco.org or msyearbook@ecspco.org)

NOTE: You MUST have State Child Abuse, Criminal, and FBI clearances before volunteering for activities involving students.

Contact volunteer@ecspco.org to learn more about volunteering.

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How and Why to Get Clearances

If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.

-Kofi Annan

ECS values our parent and family volunteers that dedicate their time to ensure our students and staff receive much-needed assistance throughout our district.

PA State Law requires school volunteers to have the following clearances:

More info about required clearances is available from the PA Department of Human Services.

    • Must be no more than 1 year old when first provided to the school.

    • Must be updated every 5 years.

    • chaperoning field trips

    • working with a small group of students or with an individual student

    • driving a team/group to an activity

    • chaperoning a student-only event

    • helping in a classroom and hosting in-classroom parties and celebrations

    • any task in which you are working directly with students

    • attending a classroom presentation or party

    • Presenting to a class (reading a book or Career Day)

    • attending a school-sponsored event

    • any task that does not involve working directly with students

    • Prospective volunteers will need to submit their clearances via the Raptor system. ECS does not accept hard copies of clearances or emailed clearances.

    • When submitting clearances through Raptor, you must have all three clearances/waivers ready for upload. All three are required for successful submission. Raptor does not save incomplete applications.

    • Once submitted, approval can take up to 60 days.

    • The submitted clearances must be the correct required clearances. See ECS Guide to Volunteering to learn more.

    • Once approved, volunteers will receive an email via the Raptor system.

    • Volunteers will receive two generated reminder emails from Raptor at the 90 and 30-day mark prior to the expiration of your clearances.

    • Grace Period for currently active ECS family volunteers:

      • If you plan to continue volunteering during the school year of 2023/2024, you can upload your previous clearances if they were issued after June 20th, 2020. We kindly request that you submit them no later than October 31st, 2023. 

      • After November 1st, 2023, all applications must upload new clearances and will no longer be eligible for the grace period.

If you have questions regarding volunteering or your clearances please email raptor.management@ecspgh.org
Thank you for your dedication to ECS! Your services are invaluable.

Please note that Raptor does not save incomplete applications. Have all materials ready prior to starting the application process.

Room Parents

Room parents are a tremendous asset to ECS teachers. By handling volunteer coordination, planning parties, and helping out “behind the scenes” room parents free up teachers’ time so they are able to focus their time and energy on what is most important–teaching our kids!

If you are interested in serving as a room parent or want to find out who the room parent is for your child’s class, please contact the Room Parent Coordinator.

Room Parent Resources

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