Reply to SSL Hours for Religious Activities and the First Amendment

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Reply to "SSL Hours for Religious Activities and the First Amendment"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Service learning hours are supposed to involve acts of service that benefit the community/society.  So obviously it shouldn't include tasks where the goal isn't to benefit people/community/society, but instead just to advance some specific religion (and no, you can't just say "well I think if more people practiced my religion it would be better for society, so obviously helping advance my religion is service!")   I believe you can get SSL hours for church activities that are actually about service to the community, which is fine, but it would be nuts to say that kids should be able to count helping assist in religious services or delivering religious training to children as community service.[/quote]

My kid gets all sorts of random SSL hours in MS that don't directly 'benefit the community'.  Maybe they need to define that more clearly.

She got SSL hours in MS for a discussion/writing assignment about the book Stamped by Kendi.  If that was allowed, then it would follow that SSL at Sunday School should also be allowed.  Why does MCPS allow one and not the other?  [/quote]

The whole SSL system should be scrapped.  SSL allows for a bunch of activities that are not service to the broader community, but are service to a narrow group of individuals.  A kid can get SSL hours for volunteering as a referee at a privately funded sports event where the organization filled out the appropriate paperwork to get accredited, by sending baked goods for a teacher staff meeting, for having your kid volunteer as a "junior counselor" at a summer camp that charges thousands of dollars per kid (hello:  Levine School of Music) or at a camp which exists to further a religion (vacation Bible school).  Most 6th graders get 20 hours just for attending Outdoor Ed.    And yes, I have had parents tell me that their church or synagogue is accredited and just signs off on 2 hours a week as the kid attends services.  Meanwhile 25% of kids at MCPS are in danger of not graduating because they don't meet these criteria, because they don't belong to connected institutions who can help them game the system and get the hours.

I wish there were more kids volunteering at soup kitchens and to tutor to underprivileged kids, but the kids with the most time and resources to do SSL hours tend to live in the wealthiest MCPS areas, and their parents would rather they remain nearby in their circle of comfort.[/quote]

I agree that the student service learning should be terminated. It’s not really volunteering if you’re forced to do it.
Even the community service hours that are given away at school aren’t really community service. It’s watching a video. So even the school knows that these hours are meaningless so they’ll assign something that doesn’t even matter.
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