Mandatory Community Service In High Schools

High school students should be required to partake in community service to fulfill graduation requirements. There remains an ongoing debate on whether or not to include mandatory community service in high schools across America. A plethora of schools require a predetermined amount of community service hours students should procure before graduation ("Debate Over Making Community Service Mandatory in High Schools"). A copious number of high school students seem to think completing the service hours will become an arduous and formidable task because they are unaware of where to begin their search. Oftentimes, teens might not need to look any farther than the local businesses and shelters in their own towns ("Should Students Be Required to

Approximately six million students performed some type of community service during this time period ("AASA | American Association of School Administrators"). Maryland remains the only state to require universal service learning even though several other districts recently mandated service as a requirement. In the inauguration years after Maryland changed its policy, eighth grade volunteering went up six percent compared to before the requirement ("Community Service Requirements Seen to Reduce Volunteering"). Numerous students exist in seclusion in the classroom, separated from what they continue learning in school and what happens in the actual world. Community service programs allow administrators to demonstrate to constituents and to taxpayers that what schools require of their students contains a sense of value. Students need to feel like they contribute to society. Janet Delaney, manager of the San Diego City School’s Partnerships in Education program, stated, “We have to promote our young people as not part of the problem in a community, but they are part of the solution in the community. When the teens serve the community, they bring the learning to life. One of the things public education has struggled with forever is finding real-life context. We’ve seen improved attendance and learning. Real kids are more into the visual and experiential. They

As part of their public involvement, these two teens served dinners in the community, gave dictionaries to elementary children, taught nutrition to younger kids, and bear witness on youth-oriented bills as part of the Washington State Legislative Youth Advisory Council. An abundance of Washington school districts currently require students to complete 10 to 100 hours of community service before graduation. Washington Representative Steve Bergquist introduced and passed a bill that will make community service mandatory for graduation starting in 2017. The bill allows individual school districts to define "community service,” how many hours students must log, and how the schools track the hours. A Nordstrom’s analyst, who testified as a private citizen, said emotional intelligence contributes to how a young person adjusts to the working world ("Community Service Required for High School