Edexia for California Sciences

Our school board is weighing whether every student should complete 40 hours of community service before graduation. The board should adopt the requirement, because service connects students to the community they live in, builds skills a classroom cannot, and, with the right support, can be fair to students who already work or care for family. The strongest reason is connection. Source 1, an article by a local food bank director, describes students who started out sorting cans and ended up running the weekend distribution line. She writes that they stopped seeing the food bank as a place for other people. A requirement gives every student a reason to walk through that door at least once. Service also teaches skills that are hard to practice at a desk. In Source 2, a former volunteer explains that tutoring younger students taught her to plan, to listen, and to keep going when a lesson did not work. These are the same skills employers and colleges say they look for, and they grow from doing real work for real people. Some students argue that a requirement is unfair to those who already have jobs or look after siblings after school. Source 3, a student op-ed, makes this point well, and the board should take it seriously. However, the answer is not to drop the requirement but to design it fairly: count family caregiving and paid work that serves others, and offer service hours during the school day. With those changes, the requirement asks something of every student without punishing anyone for their circumstances.