Service Program
You Can Make a Difference
The Service Program is a great way to start. Service is a key part of our school's mission. You must earn 60 Service points in order to graduate. All 7th and 8th graders perform service, but 6th graders are strongly encouraged to jump right in and start serving and accumulating points. The purpose of this program is for you to receive practical work experience while giving something back to your school and community. You might ask yourself, “What can I do that makes a difference? I'm only a kid.” The answer is, “A lot!” Read on to learn how.
What You Get From the Service Program
- An opportunity to act as an ambassador for your school, family and most importantly yourself.
- The possibility to make a real impact on another person -- perhaps a younger child you are helping learn to read, an elder who finds companionship in your visits, or a needy person who is a little less hungry because you gave a helping hand.
- Work experience. As you become a young adult and look for paid work, the experience you have volunteering will set you apart. If you have college dreams, you will be able to list your volunteer work on college applications and improve your chances for acceptance.
- A chance to try out and learn about different jobs within our community and for our school. Do you think you might want to be a chef, firefighter, ecologist, teacher, or musical performer when you grow up? Well here's a way for you to get some exposure to these careers.
- And last but not least, a real sense of satisfaction that you helped someone else. It feels great!
Service Points
Each hour of community service, for organizations outside the school, will earn you two points. Each hour of school service that you perform, on certain projects, will earn you one point. Other projects that combine service to the school and personal enrichment (such as chorus, band, DI, sports teams, etc.) will earn you a fixed point value for a full year, trimester, or season of service. You will find more information on these projects and their point values in the Catalog of Service Opportunities included in this packet. You will probably do a number of different jobs in order to earn all of your points.
You must earn 30 points by the end of your 7th grade year, and 60 points by April 30 of your 8th grade year. New 8th graders will start with a 30-point baseline so everyone ends up with 60 points at the completion of the program.
New Requirement: Sharing Your Experience With Others
Each 8th grade student is now required to share his or her thoughts or experiences from doing a service project. This may be done by:
- writing a reflection (please give it to your crew leader)
- giving a 5-minute presentation to your crew or another crew (perhaps inspire someone in a younger grade), or
- writing an article for the school newspaper.
For any of these three methods, you should cover the following information:
- What service project did you do and for whom?
- Tell a story about something that happened while doing the service project.
- Describe your feelings.
- Choose a Design Principle and relate it to your experience.
Service to the School - One Point Per Hour
Throughout the year, there are continual opportunities to help with projects that improve our school. Watch for notices in the hallway and announcements in your Friday folder. For example, you may sign up to help with a special cleanup to prepare for Exhibition Night, or a weekend project to paint a classroom. Eligible projects are those that you do on your own time (for at least an hour), that benefit the school, and are supervised by a faculty member, parent, or other approved adult. For more details on what qualifies for school service with examples, please refer to the Service Guidelines included in this packet.
Service to the School - Fixed Point Value
Certain projects qualify both as service to the school and personal enrichment. While they provide personal benefit for you, we recognize that these activities make our school a better place by creating something that is shared to enrich the school (such as a concert, play, or publication), or they give you a chance to represent our school to others (such as at competitions). As these projects require your participation continuously for a year, a trimester, or a season, it is more appropriate to designate a fixed number of points for them. Eligible projects are those that you do on your own time that benefit both the school and your goals or interests, and are supervised by a faculty member, parent, or other approved adult. For more details on what qualifies for this kind of school service with examples, please refer to the Service Guidelines included in this packet, and the list of points for each activity on the cover of the green Catalog of Service Opportunities.
New Policy This Year
To encourage you to look beyond school activities for your service opportunities, only 30 points earned in this way will be applied toward the 60-point requirement for graduation (although you can earn as many total points as you wish). The other 30 points out of 60 must be earned with other school service projects or community service projects.
However, if you coach or mentor other students as part of the activity, you can apply to have all the service points you have earned for that school activity counted toward your 60-point graduation requirement. During your 7th and/or 8th grade years, if you:
- help other students to improve their skills, or
- ensure that they feel comfortable socially with the group, or
- assist the group in other ways that demonstrate your understanding of service and compassion,
simply write a brief letter to the Service Committee, explaining what you did during the activity to help another student, and give some specific examples. Ask the supervising adult of the activity to sign your letter, and submit it to a Service Committee member.
Service to the Community - Two Points Per Hour
There are three ways to start doing a Community Service project.
Find a job yourself. Eligible projects are those that you do on your own time (for at least an hour), that benefit the community outside of school, and are supervised by a faculty member, parent, or other approved adult. In addition, you must not receive monetary or other compensation for the service. For more details on what qualifies for community service with examples, please refer to the Service Guidelines included in this packet.
If you are involved in scouting, religious groups, town improvement projects, or service organizations, those hours earn Service points. You can also look for community organizations and projects that interest you and arrange to volunteer for them. Local newspaper articles are a great source of information on places that need your help.
Choose a job from our Catalog of Service Opportunities (on green paper in this packet). The Service Committee has collected information on a number of volunteer positions available for our students. New opportunities will appear in your Friday folders as we learn of them. These volunteer jobs outside of school are with recognized organizations in our region, and are sanctioned by the school's administration.
Review the Catalog with your parents/guardians. Be sure that you can meet the time requirements before you make your final decisions. If you will need your parents/guardians' help to go to and from the job site, or if the job site requests adult supervision, please make sure one of them will be able to transport you and supervise your work.
The Catalog listings are grouped by the nature of the COMMITMENT they require: EVENTS, PLACEMENTS, LISTS and AD HOC. The type of commitment determines what action you must take to sign up. Further details on this are provided on the first page of the Catalog.
Ask us for help. If you just can't decide what volunteer job would be right for you, please feel free to contact us. If you can tell us something about your interests, your concerns, your time constraints, we'll try to help you find a position that you will enjoy and find fulfilling.
Service Logs (blue form) Tell Us What You Have Done
After you have completed some service work, submit a blue Service Log to tell us what you did. In this way, your progress toward earning 60 service points will be tracked. You do not need to log Fixed Point Service; we get that information from the adults who supervise those activities. You must log your service hours in order for us to award you the Service Points you need to graduate!
Completing Your Service Responsibly
This packet includes a Code of Conduct for everyone involved: the organization, your parents, your crew leader, and you. Please read it carefully with your parents/guardians before you both sign your Service Plan.
Some organizations may expect you to commit to specific responsibilities in order to work there (such as doing special training first, or working a certain number of hours). While we ask organizations we know to tell you about these expectations in advance, it is a good idea to ask your supervisor if there are any rules, guidelines or expectations you should know. When you sign up for a job, you are agreeing to uphold those responsibilities, in addition to our Code of Conduct.
- Once you choose a project, you make a commitment to that organization to be there during the assigned times. This is not a “take it or leave it” type of job. The organization expects you to show up on time, properly dressed, and eager to be there.
- As you do in school, you need to act with respect for others, kindness and patience toward those still learning and those in need, and have a willingness to do what is asked of you. You are to use the community values and Design Principles we teach in school.
- If for any reason you are unable to meet your commitment for a particular day, you must contact your organization and let them know. Whenever possible, you should give them three days notice. REMEMBER: THEY ARE COUNTING ON YOU!
- Complete all work asked of you. If you do not understand or are unable to complete the work, bring it to the attention of your contact at the organization. They are there to help.
- If you have a problem or concern that is not directly about the job tasks, or that is difficult to discuss with your organization contact, tell your crew leader or someone on the Service Committee.
- Log the hours you spend on your job (see Logging Your Hours in this packet). All hours must be documented and verified by a supervising adult. Do this as you go along; it is much easier than trying to remember later how many hours you served.
- Your parents make a commitment, too. They must provide you with transportation to and from your job if that is required.
Beyond the Points
Understanding the importance of giving back to your community and school, now and as you grow into adulthood, will make you a stronger, more successful person, and ensure better communities for us all. Fulfilling volunteer commitments can seem daunting in the midst of all the other rigorous academic requirements of our school, but we know you are up to the challenge! We are proud of you, and you will be proud of yourself.
Please contact us any time you have questions or concerns about the Service Program. We look forward to helping you to achieve your service goals.
The Service Committee:
Leslie Kraemer, Parent Volunteer
Debby Foner, Parent Volunteer