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There isn't one in any of the schools my children have attended. However, the IB school my middle schooler will be transferring to next year has a community service requirement.
I'm kind of torn on this one. Not that I'm against kids doing something for the community, but that most of the ones I know already have community service coming out the yinyang. Churches, Scouts, various school clubs and societies, sports teams, mission trips, etc. I don't know where the kids would put it on their schedules. The vast majority of kids out there today are active in the community and will make good citizens in the future. I don't worry about them.
Yet at the same time I can see the benefit to some students who never serve in anything but expect to get. They need to learn life is a two way street and you get from it what you put in. Those are the ones we all worry about.
I'm kind of torn on this one. Not that I'm against kids doing something for the community, but that most of the ones I know already have community service coming out the yinyang. Churches, Scouts, various school clubs and societies, sports teams, mission trips, etc. I don't know where the kids would put it on their schedules. The vast majority of kids out there today are active in the community and will make good citizens in the future. I don't worry about them.
Yet at the same time I can see the benefit to some students who never serve in anything but expect to get. They need to learn life is a two way street and you get from it what you put in. Those are the ones we all worry about.
Some of the things you mention would be included in community service.
All 8th graders at our son's middle school must complete 12 hours of community service by the end of March as one of the requirements for moving on to high school. They have to identify the organization at the beginning of the school year, get approval from their advisory teacher, and a contract is signed by the student and their designated supervisor.
We don't do church or scouts (although he does assist his coach with a younger soccer team), so I was happy for there to be a formal service requirement and structured program. I think he and his friends really enjoyed it, both because of the warm fuzzies that come from helping/contributing/feeling useful and because their supervisors gave them lots of individual adult attention and positive feedback (things that can be pretty thin on the ground in your average middle school).
For a younger student it should include a parent or teacher supervisor as it might be too much work for an already overburdened community organization. Pick the project carefully as its hard to handle young adults when you have your own jobs to do with limited budget and resources. I speak from experience.
The Florida Bright Futures scholarship program requires community service to qualify for all of the scholarship rewards. The number of hours depends on the amount offered and is from 30 to 100 hours. I don't think that is an unreasonable requirement for a scholarship.
The IB program (as mentioned above) also has community service hours requirements to get the IB diploma and has been that way since I graduated over 20 years ago. I volunteered mostly at the hospital where my dad worked. It had a candy striper program (particularly big in the summer) and it was a lot of fun. If you went during the summer, they'd send you to different areas around the hospital. Several other kids in my class also went there during the summers.
What kind of community service requirements have you seen in schools?
Did they work well?
Should they be required, and if so, how should they be structured?
We have only had community service requirements for optional clubs or activities like key club, NHS, etc.
They should not be REQUIRED as many students do not have a situation which allows them the latitude to meed those sorts of things without hardship to the family. But a culture of community service should be fostered by the school, in which community service events begin to take on a social aspect and become part of the culture of the school.
I have never seen them in public schools, and don't know how they would be accepted by parents. Both our kids had them in their parochial high schools, and they worked very well.
Some of the things you mention would be included in community service.
Sorry for the confusion. What I was trying to say is they are already doing so much community service that having it as school requirement would just add an extra burden with no added educational value. My son for example is already doing significant community service through Scouts, church, and clubs. NHS has a community service requirement too but they will only accept the hours put into their organized service events and wouldn't count all the hours he already had so he just reached his limit and said "scr -- it."
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