The Orcas Island School District is fortunate to have a large group of volunteers who support our students in many ways. Volunteers help students with Senior Projects, drive on field trips, run fund-raisers, work with individual students, assist with sports teams, clean up the grounds, prepare for games, help in the library, read to students, donate time to build a dugout, weed the garden, speak in our classrooms, chaperone dances, open their farms and other sites to students in FEAST and on field trips, serve on Site Councils, PTSA, Budget Advisory Committee, YES on Schools and many other committees that help provide direction for our school planning and the list could go on and on and on.

Our programs would be less rich and our students would do less well without our incredible volunteers who provide so much support to our students. Our students are incredibly fortunate to grow up in a community that is so supportive of their education. The gifts that volunteers give to our student are impossible to count and are one of the reasons that our students often give back themselves so generously through their senior projects and post high school activities.

One thing that volunteers cannot do however, is build our schools. The construction of public schools is carefully regulated. Under the Revised Code of Washington (RCW), there are a number of regulations that prevent us from collecting a group of volunteers to build our schools. Here are a few of those RCWs:

RCW 39.12.020 requires that prevailing wages be paid for all work done on public works contracts.

RCW 39.12.040 requires that all agencies and contractors performing public works file an affidavit of prevailing wages paid.

RCW 39.12.042 provides that if an agency does not comply with 39.12.040, it shall be liable to the workers performing the work, for any and all claims for wages.

RCW9.18.120 states that anyone entering into any agreement (such as using volunteer labor) that effectively suppresses the requirement for an open public bidding process on public works, shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.

As much as we would like to be able to enlist local volunteers to help build needed facilities for our schools, we are simply not allowed to do under current laws.

Barbara Kline

Superintendent/Principal