Schools’ service credit policy attracts national criticism

TV and radio debate school policy after students are told they would earn credit for attending an immigration rally

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Questions about what constitutes community service have filled e-mail list-servs, television news programs and radio airwaves for the past two weeks on word that public school students would receive service credit for attending an immigrant rights rally in Washington.

‘‘Going to a protest, I don’t think passes the laugh test,” said Brad Botwin of Derwood, whose son is a senior at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.

Casa of Maryland Inc., a nonprofit that advocates for Latinos and immigrants, organized student participation in the April 10 immigration rally.

About 100 students, some with their families, boarded buses from three county high schools bound for Washington, said Liz Alex, a Casa community organizer.

Students from Montgomery Blair High in Silver Spring, Albert Einstein High in Kensington, Walter Johnson High in Bethesda, Watkins Mill High in Gaithersburg and Rockville High, as well as several middle schools, went to the rally, Alex said.

Botwin disagrees with Casa’s stance on immigration.

‘‘This group is really pushing the line as far as political advocacy,” said Botwin, who was interviewed last week on Fox News Channel’s ‘‘Fox and Friends” morning show. ‘‘If [students] want to go on their own volition, fine.”

Botwin said he worries that students desperate for service credit hours could be advocating for causes they do not necessarily support.

How service credits work Students may choose from three types of activities to fulfill their 60-hour community service requirement between the summer before sixth grade and graduation: Direct action — Meeting the people they are helping, such as working as a reading tutor. Indirect action — Not meeting the people they are helping, such as collecting clothing. Advocacy — Writing, for example, to legislators about a political or social issue or participating in a legal march to support an issue. Students may receive credit for legal activities organized by any group that can prove it is secular and not-for-profit. They may not miss class. To receive the credits, students must complete pre- and post-event activities, including writing an essay on their experience. To learn more Go to www.mcps.k12.md.us⁄ departments⁄ssl⁄

Most of the students who attended last week’s rally were first- or second-generation immigrants of Latino, Asian or African descent, Alex said.

Students have participated in marches and rallies on both sides of the abortion debate and in support of the National Rifle Association to earn service credits, said school board member Stephen N. Abrams (Dist. 2) of Rockville.

In February 2004, some taxpayers criticized the school system for giving students credits for attending a rally in Annapolis in support of the Thornton school funding bill.

‘‘The numbers were not such that they brought out any organized efforts to challenge it,” Abrams said.

Abrams said the recent controversy evolved from misinformation: People believed that the school system was letting students out of school to participate in the April 10 march, when in fact schools were closed for spring break.

Abrams called student service learning an ‘‘afterthought program.”

The requirement was passed by the state school board in 1992, and was first required for the Class of 1997.

The county school board decided ‘‘if we have to do it, we set it up in a protocol where it provides the broadest range of choices,” said Abrams, who defended the board’s approach on television last week.

That range includes participating in a community cleanup to advocacy on either side of an issue.

Students should be able to receive service credit for volunteering with the Minutemen, who advocate for tighter borders and monitor day laborers, Abrams said.

Radio and television hosts and critics of the school system’s policy have asked if students could receive credit for participating in activities of the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Nation.

‘‘They have to be mainstream,” Abrams said. ‘‘They have to be subject to legitimate political debate.”

The debate degenerated as it made national news, according to an April 7 memo to the school board from schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.

Syndicated radio talk-show hosts criticized Weast and told listeners to call complaints in to his office and the school board, the memo said.

‘‘Many of the callers were abusive to school system staff, using derogatory ethnic comments in expressing their views,” Weast wrote.

Abrams said he sees the school system as an easy mark.

‘‘They look for someone to vent their frustration on and the school system is a handy target for that,” he said. ‘‘It’s an institution. Ever hear them say, ‘Call City Hall?’”