Volunteering
The Alameda Unified School District appreciates your interest in serving as a volunteer.
Volunteers play a pivotal role in enhancing the overall learning experience for our students and fostering a positive school environment. The time you spend volunteering with students can have a huge impact on their self-esteem, behavior, academic achievement, and social development.
Some individuals choose to interact directly with students “on the front lines” by volunteering in classrooms, tutoring, supervising lunches, or driving students on a field trip. Others choose to work “behind the scenes” in positions such as fundraising, public relations, or committee work, which benefit the entire District and students. Regardless of which form or direction your volunteer services take, your generosity in donating time, assistance, and/or expertise is very much appreciated. With the generous and caring support of volunteers such as yourself, the opportunities to meet the individual needs of each child are greatly increased.
Volunteering is also a wonderful way to learn more about AUSD, your child's school, and our educational program. This, in turn, will help you be a more informed, engaged, and supportive parent/guardian.
Safety and the well-being of our students is our top priority. Therefore we require volunteers to complete the volunteer agreement process and upload documents via our new online registration form. More information about this process is available on our Online Volunteer Registration page.
Important Updates for 2026
Please see the following two modules for important information about new state volunteer requirements this year.
New State Requirement #1
Mandated Reporter Training
Senate Bill 848 (SB 848), which was signed into law in October of last year, expands the definition of mandated reporters to apply to certain kinds of contractors and volunteers.
(Mandated reporters are people who have regular contact with children and are required to report knowledge or reasonable suspicion of child abuse to the authorities. Mandated reporter training provides important information on recognizing and reporting suspected child abuse or neglect.)
Because of that, starting July 1, 2026, L2 “Ongoing” volunteers and L3 (“Ongoing, Allowed to Drive Students”) volunteers will need to:
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Complete an annual mandated reporter training approved by the State of California
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Provide evidence of training completion
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Complete volunteer registration approval annually
L1 (“Limited”) volunteers do not need to take the training.
We understand this may be a burden for families and would like to emphasize that this is a state law now that we need to follow. To ease the burden, an approved course will be made available to volunteers within their Arbiter registration (volunteers will be able to upload their certificate of completion through Arbiter, as well). The course takes about 50 minutes.
Registration for the 2026-27 school year will be available to interested volunteers beginning July 1.
New State Requirement #2
Maintaining Live scan Status
In the spring of 2026, the State Department of Justice (DOJ) informed AUSD's Human Resources Department that inactive volunteers must be reported to the DOJ so that AUSD no longer receives the volunteer's Live Scan reports.
(Live Scan is the service that takes fingerprints for criminal background checks and also informs agencies if someone in their system is convicted of a crime.)
Starting in 2026-27, volunteers who register with AUSD annually only need to get fingerprinted once. Any volunteer who is not registered annually in Arbiter, however, will be reported to the DOJ as "inactive."
Those volunteers will need to be fingerprinted again if they want to volunteer in any future years. It is ok if a volunteer registers but then realizes they cannot actually volunteer that year. The registration is just to maintain their Live Scan status.
Not sure if you'll be able to volunteer this coming year? Go ahead and register to keep your Live Scan status active. It is ok if you end up not volunteering.
Contacts
Human Resources
510-337-7070
Online Registration Process
Our online Volunteer Registration process allows you to sign up to help out at as many school sites as you want.
Plus it's built on the Arbiter platform that many families are already using to register for high school athletics.
Please go to our Online Volunteer Registration page for more information.
Or visit Arbiter to get started!