By Patrick Adrian [email protected]
CLAREMONT — The Claremont School Board dismissed a proposal by Stevens High School administrators to strike the community service requirement for high school graduation.
The board plans to instead explore ways to make the experience for students more meaningful and manageable.
Last week, the Claremont School Board voted unanimously to explore ways to reinvigorate the school’s community service component in response to school complaints about the difficulty tracking and verifying student’s hours and too many students falling behind to meet the criteria.
“Every year we find that at least 50% of the senior class does not meet the criteria and there is a mad dash to provide ‘documentation’ that it has been done,” a letter submitted by the team stated. “But there is little ability on our end to determine whether the work has been done.”
The letter, submitted by Principal Pat Barry in July, said the administration had planned to make this proposal prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic, though the pandemic did add recent challenges for students to find available opportunities in the community.
The administrators said the school would continue to promote doing community service and track student hours for the purposes of college applications, scholarships and school awards.
However, compelling students to fulfill community service obligations arguably defeats the spirit and intent of community service, the administrators said.
“We define Community Service to students as ‘doing something for someone else, even when there’s nothing in it for you,’” the letter states. “We are being hypocritical in this definition because a student’s ability to receive a diploma is directly tied to whether or not they complete a minimum of 48 hours of community service.”
But the school board, discussing this proposal on Wednesday, Sept. 2, did not accept this rationale.
“If students were not doing their English requirement, we would still require them to do it,” board member Jason Benware said. “I don’t like this approach in general or in our schools where we say it’s too hard for people or it’s inconvenient, so let’s not do it anymore.”
Benware additionally noted that the students who complete community service for their college transcripts still personally benefit and questioned whether the school needs to reevaluate the importance of service.
“Even if students feel they get nothing out of it or there’s a mad scramble, there is a benefit,” Benware said. “Because someone is benefitting from this. There is a community benefit.”
Board members mutually agreed that many Stevens students might never be exposed to even the notion of community service without the graduation requirement.
Vice-Chair Heather Whitney suggested the district broadening the idea from “community service” to “community experience” and expanding the opportunities to activities like job shadowing or college visits to “experience a different way of life.”
“I think a lot of students in this community don’t get to live or see outside the community. Even my own children who are pushed pretty hard don’t have any idea what they want to do. They don’t know what college looks like or what a job looks like.”
Chair Frank Sprague supported Whitney’s proposal.
“Maybe it’s time to broaden our definition of what this is“,” Sprague said. “It’s not just about community service but community experience.
Sprague also suggested restructuring the requirement into annual student requirements of 12 service hours each grade level.This approach could potentially help school staff catch lagging students earlier and make up the deficits in more manageable installments.
The school board reportedly discussed this idea several years ago though SAU 6 administrators said they do not believe it has been practiced.
Board members also appeared receptive to this approach.
“An hour per month is what it amounts to,” Benware said. “An hour per month is easily wasted on many things.
“With some guidance at school and home we should be able to [ensure students] get this done,” board member Mike Petrin said.
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