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Community Service

Community Service (Grades 6-10) and CAS (Grades 11-12)


Service is the giving of time and oneself to address a need within the school, local, national, or the international community, or on behalf of the environment. “Need” is defined is defined along the lines of “impoverished.”



Guidelines for earning credit for your service to the community:

Your service is for free. You may help a group fundraising effort, like selling ducks for the Summit Foundation rubber duck race, and earn credit, but if you earn money from babysitting or doing chores, then donate the money to charity, that effort is noble, but it is not community service.

Your service involves time and personal energy, not money. The CS hours you receive are equal to the number of hours you have worked. The emphasis of Summit District Schools and the International Baccalaureate program is on your direct engagement and experience, not on “I’ll donate $20, so that must be worth 2 hours of CS.”

Sometimes understanding what something IS, is better understood by what it is NOT.

So, according to the IBO, Community Service is NOT: 
  • A passive pursuit, such as a visit to a museum, the theatre, art exhibition, concert or sports event, unless it clearly inspires work in a related community service activity in which a student is engaged. 
  • A form of duty within the family, such as spring cleaning, working at the family business for free, or taking care of a relative. 
  • Religious devotion and any activity which can be interpreted as proselytizing.