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Volunteer work required to graduate Most Grade 12s have yet to do theirs

An alarming majority of Ontario Grade 12 students have not performed the 40 hours of volunteer work they need to graduate this year, schools say — an oversight that could cost them their high school diploma.

Concerned that as many as 65,000 Ontario students have not yet logged their "community service" hours — a new requirement starting this year — schools are scrambling to get both teens and their parents to take the new rule seriously.

Double cohort angst or not, Queen's Park has made it clear: No 40 hours, no diploma.

"It doesn't matter if you got 95 per cent — you still need that (volunteer) paperwork or you won't graduate," said superintendent Bob Harper of the York Region District School Board. He fears this first crop of four-year graduates is so distracted by the stress of the double cohort, many have forgotten the volunteer time all together.

From Toronto to Thunder Bay, schools say kids aren't doing the time:

Nearly half of York Region's Grade 12s have yet to complete their community hours — something they've known about since Grade 9, Harper said. To give them a nudge, he slapped a Dec. 15 deadline on Grade 12 students to finish their hours, and will pay special attention to prodding those who don't.

Peel District School Board officials say the "vast majority" of Grade 12s still haven't done their community service.

The board has mailed special reminders out with interim report cards.

"Peel high school principals have tried everything to get the message out — school council meetings, student booklets, the board Web site, even a special package called Your Time Counts, which lists volunteer agencies the kids can use," said co-ordinator Paul Jones. "But this may be the one graduation requirement parents haven't recognized."

High schools across Durham Region are sending reminders in interim report cards this month, "because about 60 per cent have not completed their 40 hours of service," said secondary school coordinator Leo Plue. "I'm concerned. There's already a lot of pressure on these kids if they've left the community service to this last year, given they have so much work in Grade 12, and many also have part-time jobs."

Between 40 per cent to 60 per cent of Grade 12s in Thunder Bay have not done their volunteer hours, said Brian McKinnon, of the Lakehead District School Board — which even has used an automated telephone message system to remind families.

The new volunteer hours have caught so many Hamilton Grade 12 students by surprise this year — "their overall response seems to be, `Oh, wow; how did that creep up on us?'" reports board spokesperson Jane Allison — that the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board has urged guidance counselors to beef up reminders.

"This group of teens has been through so much — the new curriculum, the new literacy test, the new four-year program — that this volunteer requirement is just one more pressure," Allison said. "Forty hours doesn't sound like a lot, but the kids are scrambling."

The York Catholic District School Board is sending reminders in report cards this month, even though many students have finished the hours because volunteering has always been part of the Catholic schools' "Christian service," said spokesperson Chris Cable.

Only about half the Grade 12 students in Toronto appear to have done their hours, estimates executive superintendent John Reynolds of the Toronto District School Board, basing that figure on conversations with principals at schools across the city.

While Grade 12s should still be able to earn their hours at the last minute next summer, "the reality is, these hours shouldn't be hard to get now," Reynolds said.

"It boggles my mind that any student would have trouble doing these hours, given all the opportunity for volunteer work. Any student who is expecting to walk across the stage for graduation next year needs to figure it out."

But with all the focus on the double cohort year — when the last OAC students finish alongside the first new four-year grads — the Grade 12s already have enough tension in their lives, said one guidance department head.

"This volunteer thing is just one more piece of the double-cohort nightmare — especially because universities say they want proof the kids have done it," said Olga Wisniewski, head of the guidance department at Agincourt Collegiate.

Wisniewski is so concerned that students not overlook this credential, she has been visiting each Grade 12 class this week to "shake the tree."

"I've been making announcements, but the only way to be really sure who has done it is to go into the classroom."

Under the new curriculum, whose first graduates finish next June, a high school diploma now has two extra requirements: 40 hours of community service and passing the Grade 10 literacy test.

But while Queen's Park let the first graduating class off the hook for the literacy test — it kicks in instead for the class of 2004 — there is no such reprieve on the volunteer requirement.

Deputy Education Minister Suzanne Herbert sent a memo to every board in Ontario this fall reminding them that the 40-hour rule stands and must be recorded on each student's file.

"The first group of students studying under the new requirements will be graduating in the 2002-2003 year and should be aware that the Ontario Secondary School Diploma cannot be issued until all requirements are met," Herbert wrote in her Sept. 26 memorandum.

"The Ontario Student Transcript includes a check-off box indicating the student has successfully completed the 40-hour diploma requirement. I would encourage you to remind students about community involvement so they have an opportunity to fulfill this requirement before the end of the school year."

Schools such as Victoria Park Secondary School that use the standardized International Baccalaureate curriculum, a program popular at many private schools and a growing number of public collegiates, already require students to complete 150 hours of community service, said principal Anne Seymour. So the 40-hour rule poses to problem.

But other schools find it a hard sell.

Guidance head Ted Tzalalis of Georges Vanier Secondary School in North York said he's done "a lot of reminders since Grade 9 with the kids, from posters around the school to talking about it in Grade 10 Career Studies, and little reminders at the end of each semester.

"We've done all we could, but it seems many parents and students are not taking the requirement seriously."

Central Technical School principal Rick Tarasuk says only about one-quarter of Grade 12s at this large downtown school have completed their hours, "despite our best efforts. We've sent home a letter, told the kids, and included a reminder in the mid-term report cards."

Tarasuk's son already earned his hours by volunteering at a summer hockey camp, "but when you get talking to people, they don't even seem to know about it."

Lawrence Park guidance department head Richard Curtis has been urging students at this north Toronto collegiate to finish their hours so he can include it in the first wave of applications they send off to university and college in coming weeks.

"I want to have that information ready for the first `data dump' (to universities), because the government is not going to back off on this requirement," said Curtis, who has held a special student assembly and a public meeting to make families aware of the new rule.

While it is officially the responsibility of the student and family to ensure the hours are worked, no school wants to see kids miss graduating because they didn't get around to it, said Lakehead District School Board superintendent Brian McKinnon.

"In the end, I expect maybe 10 per cent may not do their volunteer hours — so we might organize one big charity event at the schools where kids could earn their hours.

"I'm quite serious — we don't want to hang them out to dry.