Should they remove community service hours for Seniors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s also now required for middle schools. Kids need 15 hours. Ridiculous.

Really? I have an FCPS 7th grader and haven't heard anything about it.

[Anonymous]

This chain makes me so sad.

“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.” Marian Wright Edelman

To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48).

We should be held responsible for what we have. If we have been blessed with talents, wealth, knowledge, time, and the like, it is expected that we benefit others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s also now required for middle schools. Kids need 15 hours. Ridiculous.

Really? I have an FCPS 7th grader and haven't heard anything about it.

Ask your child. It’s part of the 8th grade Civics class but they give you two years to complete. We also found info on the school
Website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's required for the IB diploma, if you are unlucky enough to be stuck in an IB school. It's pointless and a waste of everyone's time. Community service that is forced doesn't teach the kids anything. They don't even do a good job.

My DS is at an IB school and is doing the IB diploma. The school offers lots of opportunities for "community service" and I agree with another poster who said it's a joke, and I would not define what the kids are doing as community service: being on a panel and talking to freshmen and sophomores about the IB program; staffing their sports/club table during an activity fair during the school day or at an after school activity night; helping out in the concession stand during a sporting event (this one does involve some work.) I don't think my DS did one thing outside of school to satisfy the community service requirement. The only service that he did which might have taught him anything was the school's mulch sale: he spent hours loading and unloading large bags of mulch into vehicles and then dropping them off at homes. When he got home, he was filthy and exhausted and maybe grasped some appreciation for manual labor.

I also have 2 DC at an IB school. I count all of the above as community service. It’s all valuable - giving up your time to share your wisdom/insight; manning the concession stand because there are never enough volunteers at their school. But these are only some of the possibilities. My DC have also helped out at a school’s food bank, cleaned up parks/athletic fields and done unpaid tutoring for both academics and music as well as helping “coach” youth sports. While having to complete service hours is mandatory, the kids get to choose when and where they serve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s also now required for middle schools. Kids need 15 hours. Ridiculous.

Really? I have an FCPS 7th grader and haven't heard anything about it.

Ask your child. It’s part of the 8th grade Civics class but they give you two years to complete. We also found info on the school
Website.

Not at our school. Went away during Covid, hasn’t come back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s also now required for middle schools. Kids need 15 hours. Ridiculous.

As a MS teacher I can tell you that this does not affect promotion to HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s also now required for middle schools. Kids need 15 hours. Ridiculous.

Really? I have an FCPS 7th grader and haven't heard anything about it.

Ask your child. It’s part of the 8th grade Civics class but they give you two years to complete. We also found info on the school
Website.

Nothing happens if they don’t do it. My kid volunteers because he wants to and when he had time but hasn’t logged an hour in FCPS ever. No one ever asked him or cared. Every now and then I tell him he should when I see an email or a post but he tells me once again it’s none of FCPS’s business when he volunteers. He didn’t apply to NHS. I think that’s the only time they have to log hours.

[Anonymous]

There are so many opportunities to volunteer AT the school - have your student ask.

My 3DC easily fulfilled this requirement with helping at MS+HS orientations, BTS night, and a sports camp.

Also consider that your student could organize a litter pick up on school grounds; have a staff member ok and sign off and done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of places won't allow volunteers under 18 without a parent chaperone for liability reasons. It's pretty restricted to umc families that have time to drive and chaperone.

I would be happy to see this requirement go away and incorporate service learning during the school day.

So, it's basically an inequitable system that favors children from two-parent households, that can drive their children, and chaperone them, so they can get a distinction on their diploma. I would be in favor of providing transportation to children without this advantage so they too can benefit from service-based learning.

[Anonymous]

10:08 here again. Going back to OP, I agree with the Tik Tok. I don’t think it should be forced and this is why I don’t force my kid to log his hours. Since middle school, he’s spent a significant amount of time volunteering but has done it for the right reasons. That’s what matters. If I told him he had to volunteer for 10 hours to fill a requirement I would have gotten more resistance.

Over the years he’s helped with invasive plant clean ups, mulch sales, animal rescue adoptions and being an assistant coach on youth sports teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of places won't allow volunteers under 18 without a parent chaperone for liability reasons. It's pretty restricted to umc families that have time to drive and chaperone.

I would be happy to see this requirement go away and incorporate service learning during the school day.

PP (an award winning volunteer, charity board member, active volunteer)

My small, all volunteer run organization disallows “one off” teen volunteers. Too much time wasted to train, supervise and chaperone and we can’t guarantee that there will be enough work. We also have to protect client confidentiality. So, it’s complicated.

I also would get the panicked phone calls from moms (always the moms) imploring me to allow Johnny to come in right now to get his remaining (or start) vol hours.

Instead, we ask for help during a specific collection time for a larger-scale event.

For my own DS, I’d have him accompany me and do the tasks no one wanted to do like crush boxes for recycling, haul trash to the dumpster, sort mail. He earned his hours the hard way.

[Anonymous]

Many require kids be older. My kids can’t work in animal shelters due to allergies. We don’t belong to a church that organizes activities. We commute a ways to a special needs school and have multiple kids, making weekday opportunities difficult.

My son is getting the hours in now that covid is over, he’s old enough for more activities and can drive, but he’ll be missing work for it. I can see it being challenging for many families.

[Anonymous]

The responses to this thread blow my mind. Of course the kids should volunteer. It makes them invested in the community and they have to do something to help someone else. I do agree there should be some things around school (picking up trash, reshelving library books) that can be done during lunch or study hall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many require kids be older. My kids can’t work in animal shelters due to allergies. We don’t belong to a church that organizes activities. We commute a ways to a special needs school and have multiple kids, making weekday opportunities difficult.

My son is getting the hours in now that covid is over, he’s old enough for more activities and can drive, but he’ll be missing work for it. I can see it being challenging for many families.

That doesn’t make any sense. He’s missing his job, a commitment he made and which also show’s responsibility, to check a box saying he volunteered? This is what’s wrong with the requirement. In your case I would tell him to ignore any volunteer requirement and encourage him to volunteer at a time in his life when he has time. He’s going to school and working right now.

I lied and forged my hours in high school. I was going to school and working two jobs and I didn’t have an interest in volunteering. After college and before kids, I volunteered a lot because I wanted to do it. Now that my kids are getting older, I’m starting to have time to do a little more again.

[Anonymous]

The question is should SCHOOLS require community service? As parents, you can require anything from your child. Does the school need to require and monitor?