Should they remove community service hours for Seniors?

[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.

Every public school I know of has service learning options on campus during the school day.

[Anonymous]

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.

IB schools don't require that you get an IB diploma. IB diploma doesn't help with college admissions, because you don't get it until after you have been admitted or rejected. So, this seems like a silly thing to whine about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think community service should be required. Do I think everyone should volunteer/do community service? Absolutely. But requiring it means it's not service, it's servitude. That's meaningless, IMO, and defeats the purpose.

+1

[Anonymous]

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

Since when and what happens if they don't meet it? They don't get to go to HS? Can you provide a link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated HS in the 90s and had close to 250 hours of community service. I also worked and babysat and was fairly active in clubs and activities.

My sophomore has close to 200 hours, has an activity that consumes roughly 18-20hrs/week of his time. He also works one night per week.

There’s time, if you make it.

If your son does not work that 1 hour a week does your family not eat? Please check your privilege. There are kids who HAVE to work and do not have time for the service hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Since when and what happens if they don't meet it? They don't get to go to HS? Can you provide a link?

When my older kid (now a college junior) had to do hours for 8th grade Civics, there was a related project each quarter. So you could pass the class and move on without doing any hours, but you'd get a zero on each of those projects and your grade would suffer. Since it's not a HS class and doesn't matter after 8th grade, if you didn't care about taking the hit, then you just didn't do the hours.

IIRC, the one class outside of IB that requires service hours is AP Gov. Every kid I know who took that class worked the polls or with an election campaign. I don't know what the syllabus says about not doing the hours, but I'd assume that at the very least you'd get dinged grade-wise if you didn't and with an AP class, that matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 We looked on the various volunteering websites, and most required kids to be at least 14 years old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Since when and what happens if they don't meet it? They don't get to go to HS? Can you provide a link?

When my older kid (now a college junior) had to do hours for 8th grade Civics, there was a related project each quarter. So you could pass the class and move on without doing any hours, but you'd get a zero on each of those projects and your grade would suffer. Since it's not a HS class and doesn't matter after 8th grade, if you didn't care about taking the hit, then you just didn't do the hours.

IIRC, the one class outside of IB that requires service hours is AP Gov. Every kid I know who took that class worked the polls or with an election campaign. I don't know what the syllabus says about not doing the hours, but I'd assume that at the very least you'd get dinged grade-wise if you didn't and with an AP class, that matters.

In high school its worth 1 Test grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 We looked on the various volunteering websites, and most required kids to be at least 14 years old.

So, this is a good example of both why service learning is important and why it’s better to think of it as work based learning and not as community service.

Learning to think about what qualities you bring to a job, and what you don’t bring, and how to research and find opportunities, and how to identify needs in the community that you can address, and how to persevere and overcome obstacles is the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated HS in the 90s and had close to 250 hours of community service. I also worked and babysat and was fairly active in clubs and activities.

My sophomore has close to 200 hours, has an activity that consumes roughly 18-20hrs/week of his time. He also works one night per week.

There’s time, if you make it.

How many service hours do you think he would have if he was working 5 days a week, so he could give them money to you to pay for basics like rent, dinner, gas for the family's one car?
How many hours did your sophomore spend watching his younger siblings so that you could go to work?

How many of those volunteer opportunities are things that YOU or your spouse/his other parent found out about and told him to do? Would he have found out about all those same opportunities if you didn't speak English? If you worked 2nd shift at Burger King? If you strung out on the couch 24/7 and he was responsible for caring for his younger siblings so CPS didn't get involved?

[Anonymous]

Does FCPS allow kids to do hours in advance?

Can a freshman do 40 hours and be done?

[Anonymous]

Could volunteering at a members-only recreation club (think swim, golf, tennis) that operates as a nonprofit qualify for service hours in FCPS?

[Anonymous]

I wish they would do us all a favor and get rid of those hours! It teaches the kids literally nothing. First, being forced to volunteer is literally the opposite of volunteering. Second, they almost never find meaningful ways to serve, because they are TERRIBLE volunteers. I get stuck with them every year for an elementary school event (they come from the local high school) and managing them is way more work than they are worth. They leave their posts without warning, do a generally bad job at whatever it is, have zero useful skills and no initiative, and all they care about is getting their stupid form signed. Sometimes they even accidentally do damage. Please, spare us this "service."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Every public school I know of has service learning options on campus during the school day.

That simply does not work for every student. It doesn't. Tutoring. The needs for study time to get work done they can't after school (due to work, family obligations, sports, etc.) Meeting with counselors, school and guidance. THose are just off the top of my head.

[Anonymous]

My kid in mcps finished his 75 hrs of ssl requirement in ms.

It is not hard. One summer of teaching to title 1 elementary kids netted him around 125 hr. He did it for 2 summers. He did a LOT of hours every year and by hs he still raked in around 20 per semester because of requirements for various clubs and honor societies.