| I fully support any school district that enforces community service as part of graduation requirements.
First of all, there are tons of ways to give some time to the community. In my district, varsity athletes can referee/ump little league games for credit. Most of these HS athletes benefitted from a little league program, and its a way for them to give back to a program they benefitted from.
Members of band or chorus can give benefit concerts to the elderly center or the elementary school. Members of tech-ed can donate time to work on school buses or build projects for the school.
Other students can be used on blood drives as volunteers or to help organize local elections.
Others can tutor.
There should be some choice involved for what the students do, but there is GREAT VALUE in volunteering to help a community function in ways that most teenagers take for granted. To say there is no educational value for a student athlete to be an official for youth sports is ignorant. You always learn from participating in an activity from a different perspective than you're used to. Same goes with organizing a blood drive, or helping with a school production.
Education doesn't start and stop in the classroom, and I think encouraging a spirit of involvment in community (usually in ways that students have already participated in as youths) instills pride in your community and a value of good citizenship.
Very shallow and narrow minded to think of this program as slave-labor for the poor abused high schoolers who are 'forced' to give back to a system from which they have been enjoying the fruits of for 12 yrs. |