By JAMES J. ALLEN
Staff writer
Seniors at Amesbury High School this year face requirements above passing the MCAS test and beyond grades granted inside the classroom.
They must also fulfill 75 hours of community service to graduate.
Following the success of the program since it was initiated nearly five years agao, other area high schools have begun re-examining their own service organizations.
Timberlane High in Plaistow, N.H., and Presentation of Mary Academy in Methuen already require community service to graduate. Pentucket Regional High School in West Newbury and Triton Regional High School in Newbury have recently formed new service clubs. And like many schools, Newburyport High requires service for induction into National Honor Society.
At Amesbury High, all students must serve at least 10 hours per year beginning this year.
Despite calling the service a “requirement,” students aren’t complaining, teachers aren’t needing to hound students to take part and non-profit organizations are benefitting.
“It’s truly a well-rounded education,” said Bill Claffey Amesbury’s Community Service Coordinator. “The kids are helping the needs of many.”
Claffey keeps a tally of students’ hours on his high school office door and “very rarely” has to get after students near the year’s end for their mandatory service.
Students named their church groups, maintainence projects at nearby parks, coaching young athletes and serving at Our Neighbor’s Table, a local food free food provider, as frequent volunteer spots.
“The funny thing is that some (students) come in reluctantly and when it’s time for them to leave they want to stay,” said Our Neighbor’s Table Director Rosemary Werner. “It brings a special feeling to you when you see the young hands helping the older hands.”
Werner said the organization depends on the student volunteers to help serve an annual 12,000 meals.
“You see the very best of the children when they come down,” she said. “I don’t think you can do a program like this without being touched.”
Student Mary Elizabeth Reidy agreed.
Before moving to Amesbury, Reidy lived in Mobile, Ala., where she volunteered to talk and hold hands with terminally ill patients at the local hospital.
Now she is planning a career in medicine. She said she doesn’t perform community service because it’s a requirement, but out of a desire to help herself.
“I used to have trouble looking people in the eye, but I don’t have that trouble anymore,” she said. “I’m more sure of myself.”
Reidy served her community before she had to. And some say requiring community service undermines its philosophy of giving out of the kindness of one’s heart.
That’s exactly what Amesbury math teacher Barbara Leary once thought.
“When we first put this thing in place I was against it,” she said. “I thought, how could it be required, it should be voluntary, philosophically.”
Since community service has been required, though, two things have happened that quelled Leary’s skepticism.
One was watching certain students serve eight to ten times the amount required.
“There are kids who don’t even turn in their hours,” she said. “It’s not a case of having to think of things for them to do. They find things on their own.”
Students serving a high number of hours receive certificates at graduation. Last year, over 20,000 hours were served by Amesbury High students.
The second thing Leary said the requirement did was give a push to reluctant students.
“Most people won’t do something unless you push them into it,” she said. “Once they see ‘oh, this is cool’ they do more hours.”
One of more interesting service jobs is held by student Rob Day, who gets some of his hours by volunteer firefighting in South Hampton, N.H.
The trick to community service, he said, is finding something that you like and that helps others.
“Students find that once they start doing it, they find they like it,” he said.
Day remembered being called to a recent accident that involved two cars and five people.
“It was a bad accident and it was cold,” he said. “We had to share our jackets with the people.”
Day, who called himself the “gopher” of the department, said he felt like he had really helped people out that day. He said he still gets excited every time a call comes in.
“It works both ways,” he said. “You have to have the hours and they make you do it.”
Fellow senior Chris King said community service looks good on college applications as well.
For King, who is involved in a number of school activities and holds a job, being busy is simply part of being in high school.
“For people out there who don’t want to get involved, maybe they shouldn’t graduate,” he said. “If you’re really involved, you should already have the number of hours.”
As for students who complain they don’t have time for community service because of after-school jobs, King said they should re-examine their priorities.
“For kids with jobs, you’re in high school, the job isn’t the most important thing,” he said.
“The goal of Amesbury High School and the goal of any high school I think is to prepare kids to be successful in whatever they do,” he said. “Community service makes good citizens.”
Leary said she now realizes that requiring community service in high school doesn’t always mean twisting students’ arms. When it does come to that, however, shesaid she quotes a favorite passage.
“When he came to die he did not want to discover that he had not lived.”