N.J. high schools study community-service requirement

Community service may have inched closer to becoming a graduation requirement for New Jersey high school students under a bill signed into law in the final days of the Corzine administration.

The legislation calls for a four-year study to start this fall at 15 high schools, including five in the southern third of the state. Under the pilot program, incoming freshmen will complete at least 20 hours of community service during their high school careers. The service must be unpaid and can take place inside or outside school.

The participating schools, which have not been named, will be chosen by the education commissioner.

The pilot expands a program the state began in 2005 that called for students in selected high schools to complete at least 15 hours of service in their junior year.

In a report to legislative leaders last year, then-Education Commissioner Lucille Davy recommended enlarging the program to cover all of high school. She suggested that the pilot be reviewed in 2014 to decide whether to implement the requirement statewide.

Of 29 schools that started the pilot, Davy's report indicated, only 11 were involved after three years. Davy attributed that, in part, to inflexibilities of the program, such as requiring the service to be performed off school property and during 11th grade, when students have many academic and extracurricular obligations. But she found that the teenagers had benefited from their participation.

"We would love to be part of the [new] pilot," said Kathy Stalter-Allen, Woodbury High School's Options II director, who coordinates service learning.

Starting with the next freshman class, Woodbury will have a service-learning requirement. Ninth graders will do 12 hours, followed by 20 hours in each of the following years.

While some critics of such programs question what young people get from being required to do good acts, Stalter-Allen is convinced the requirements have value.

"We want them to learn 'It's not all about me,' " she said.

At Delran High School, which took part in the first pilot, students often exceed the 15 hours of service required in the social studies curriculum, according to district spokeswoman Lee-Anne Oros.

In addition to outside activities, Delran provides on-site and school-supported service opportunities, including tutoring younger students, making care packages for troops overseas, and walking greyhounds at a local animal shelter.

"It's changed our environment," Oros said.

In September, Lindenwold High School, which also was in the original pilot, instituted a community-service requirement of five hours a year, but guidance director Leanna Sykes said most students already did more.

Sykes said she would love to see that in all schools.

"Being a 'success' is also being responsible for the other people around you," she said.