Service Learning (Community Service)

8th Grade Civics requirement: 

Service learning is a county requirement for all students in the 8th grade.

• Longfellow will require 5 hours of verified service for each of the first 3 quarters.
• If you have completed 2 hours of service during the summer prior to your 8th grade year, you may include those.
• If you were called to serve Longfellow this summer, "start to success" "orientation" "packet preparation" you may include up to the full 5 hours required for the first quarter. 
• Hours do NOT carry over from one quarter to the next. (If you completed service for NJHS or confirmation or the scouts or for any other reason, you may use those hours toward your civics requirement. ) We will accept all eligible service hours performed for another organization.
• Service does NOT include:
• Free babysitting (unless it is organized at a community event SO that parents may attend),
• Volunteering to help a private business such as...Veterinary hospitals (unless it is for a community service they provide) SO if you're not sure, please check...don't assume.  Again no work for a private business or at your parents office unless they work for a charitable organization.  The business will appreciate it, but it is not service learning.
• Trash pickup, unless it is part of an organized community effort (which you can organize, but you’ll need to provide evidence)
• Fundraising activities (you may still hold/have/assist fundraising if you have permission, but you can no longer count it toward your civics service learning hours)
• Volunteering to tutoring children at a private tutoring service or on your own. You may count tutoring as service work if you tutor other students under the supervision of one of your teachers here, or a former teacher at your elementary schoo. That’s it!
• The most heavily weighted portion of the service requirement is the reflection piece.  Please be sure you will be able to demonstrate service to the community and the connection to what you have learned in school about being a responsible member of the community.
• Service DOES include:
• assistance for your elderly (elderly does NOT mean 50ish...) or disabled neighbors...please get out there and rake their leaves, shovel their driveways when it snows...help them out. In these circumstances, you may have to insist that they allow you to do this for them.  If they insist on paying you, ask them to donate what they would have given you to their charity of choice.  Then, very important, have your parent sign your service record to avoid embarrassing your neighbor.
• Volunteering for your religious community (serving on the alter, assisting the instructor)
• Opportunities posted below:
• DOCUMENTATION Service records and reflections are due one week before the quarter ends (unless you have signed up to help with a project that will be completed the last week, in which case you need to let your civics teacher know.)
• If you forgot your form, please have the person supervising you sign a separate piece of paper and staple it to the official form
• YOU MUST COMPLETE THE FORM YOURSELF, IN INK and then ask your supervisor to sign it. Under no circumstances should anyone else be explaining what YOU did for your service.
• Each quarter’s forms are on the front page of the Longfellow website.

2012-2013 Service Learning Opportunities:

NJHS (National Junior Honor Society):

            Fifteen (15) hours necessary for the year.
            Eight (8) hours could have been completed in the summer.

*If your student is in NJHS, he/she will be permitted to apply five of the total service hours to both Civics and NJHS for the entire year.

If there are any further questions, please contact Liane Paulson

Last update: May 14, 2013 - Curator:

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