One of the most common thoughts, in regard to community service requirements, is that requiring students to serve negates the intent of serving, or that if the intent for the student to serve is to earn a diploma, it does not matter how. In essence, are there any other reasons that would create value? 

This argument combines the source of an action with the end result of the action and also ignores the things young people can learn about themselves when they are pushed out of their comfort zone. When a student is required to complete 75 hours of community service, this is not a form of punishment, it is an introduction to possibilities.

Through experience, young people will be introduced to issues they may never choose to be exposed to on their own. No one is born with an understanding or knowledge about food insecurity; literacy or elder care. Through exposure to issues, young people will develop awareness of those issues, and through their awareness they will develop empathy toward those issues. A young person may walk into a community garden or sit down with a younger person to tutor them, leaving them with an experience, but what happens if they don’t go to the garden or sit down? In that moment, the young person would have never created their own reason to serve. 

Requiring that a young person provide services will not harm a young person’s desire to want to serve, once the young person has completed the service then between their awareness and the development of empathy they will want to become a committed volunteer based on their experience. Studies from the Corporation for National and Community Service show that young people who engage in service develop higher levels of civic awareness and empathy, reinforcing the idea that exposure, not prior intention, is what cultivates long-term commitment.

There is evidence of this beyond just idealism. A 2023 JAMA Network Open study conducted on over 51,000 young people in the United States found a correlation between volunteering and the likelihood of adolescents thriving at rates nearly double than those who do not volunteer, with this also leading to improved mental health, and fewer behavioral problems. 

Critics may point out that this specific study focused on voluntary service; however, the psychological advantages of being present and participating in something larger than yourself, and forming connections with individuals outside of your immediate group/network, are not diminished simply because a graduation requirement was tied to your attendance. It’s the actual experience that causes a student to grow, not why they went; a student leaving from a food bank who felt more connected to their city is still going to feel equally as connected irrespective of whether or not they had a requirement to work there. This aligns with findings from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which links community engagement with improved mental health outcomes and reduced rates of depression among adolescents.

Additionally, it’s important to note what it means to belong to a community. Midtown students live in the City of Atlanta today, a city with both tremendous wealth and tremendous poverty only a few miles apart. Organizations such as the Atlanta Community Food Bank continue to address widespread food insecurity across the city, while data from the U.S. Census Bureau highlights the stark economic disparities between neighborhoods only miles apart. To graduate without having engaged with this reality in any meaningful way is in and of itself a significant failure. Therefore, by providing students with a 75-hour service requirement, students are being encouraged to look beyond their own lives and acknowledge that this city needs their help. This is a reasonable request for someone about to enter adulthood.

The concern that low-income and working students are at more of a disadvantage in meeting this service requirement is valid and deserves an appropriate policy response. Reasonable accommodations that APS should consider include flexible scheduling, placement support from the school, and awarding students credit for service related to their current employment and caregiving. A part-time job that a student has to help support their family is still a way that the student is serving their community. Therefore, the policy should define service in a way that recognizes this value. However, an equal policy response to unequal service will be more equitable, not eliminating the service requirement altogether. The service requirement is not beneficial to students to eliminate, as it removes a meaningful experience from all students.

While the concept of an alternative to the service requirement — providing students with rewards for choosing to volunteer instead of requiring them to do so — seems good at first glance, research has demonstrated that voluntary incentive programs regularly only reach students who would already be volunteering anyway. Research from Stanford University on motivation suggests that optional incentive-based programs tend to reinforce existing behaviors rather than expand participation, meaning they often fail to engage those who were not already inclined to volunteer.

The student who would have chosen to volunteer naturally will take advantage of the incentive. The student who would not have chosen to volunteer will not choose to volunteer. If you want to foster civic consciousness in all students of one graduating class, there is no way to guarantee that you will achieve that goal by providing them with an optional opportunity to participate.

Operating under a specific vision, Atlanta Public Schools has created an expectation for students to graduate with a strong sense of moral responsibility for their community. This is a vision that should be valued and fulfilled. The 75 hours of required service may not be the best form of fulfilling that vision, and how it has been implemented will continue to develop and change over time. However, the fundamental premise of providing service to your community and how serving others impacts your character is well founded.

Civic engagement does not begin at the end — it starts somewhere; for most students, a service requirement upon graduation is the beginning. The objective is not to create a group of students who will be lifelong volunteers but to create a generation of young people who have experienced at least once prior to graduation what it means to support and serve another person. This is not too much to expect.

For students at Midtown, the pressure of graduation does not stop at grades and testing. Atlanta Public Schools requires every student to complete 75 hours of community service to graduate. 

The APS policy statement opens with the hopes of students gaining “a sense of moral obligation to help those less fortunate and the desire to make their community a better place in which to live.” However, the reality for many Midtown students is far from this goal. For students, community service serves as a checkbox in the process of graduating. That makes it just another demand piled on top of classes, extracurriculars and jobs. 

Self-determination theory identifies autonomy as one of the most basic human needs. When autonomy is taken away, motivation goes with it. When you force someone to care about something, they often stop caring about it on their own. Community service is supposed to come from a genuine desire to help others. The moment a graduation requirement is attached to it, that desire gets replaced with a task. 

Data from various Maryland school districts demonstrates exactly what happens when this model is put into practice. After Maryland became the first state to mandate 75 hours for graduation in 1993, researchers tracked what happened to student volunteering over time. According to researcher Melissa Cloyd, by 2011, Maryland high school seniors were less likely to volunteer than seniors in states with no requirements at all. Before the mandate, Maryland seniors were some of the most likely to give back in the country.

Not only did the policy fail to build a culture of service, but it also dismantled one that was already there. Maryland did not create more volunteers. It created students who associated an intended act of kindness with the anxiety and workload of trying to earn their diplomas. APS has adopted the exact same model, yet it expects to see different results.

Beyond potentially decreasing motivation, this requirement does not impact all students equally. Students whose families struggle financially may not have had adequate time to serve their community. Many students have to support their families by working jobs that fill up their everyday lives, leaving no time to fulfill these demanding service hours. A blanket 75-hour requirement does not account for the reality that not every Midtown student has the same time, resources or circumstances. This policy creates an uneven experience for students coming from different backgrounds. 

Cloyd’s research found that minority and low-income students faced the greatest barriers to meeting service learning graduation requirements, meaning a policy designed to build community awareness ends up being another obstacle placed in front of students. 

But a 2023 study published in JAMA Network Open examined over 51,000 young people across the U.S. and found that volunteering was linked to nearly double the odds of flourishing among adolescents, along with better health and fewer behavioral problems. This is compelling for keeping volunteer requirements. Community service genuinely can benefit young people. 

It is important to note, however, that every student in the study chose to volunteer. The research measures the impact of voluntary service, not required service. At Midtown and many other schools across the nation, students are forced to serve their community rather than gaining a sense of moral obligation to help those less fortunate. 

APS’s 75-hour requirement does not produce the civic-minded students it intends to graduate. It produces students who are stressed about yet another number. The goal of community service is supposed to be impactful. But real impact does not come from a student tracking how many hours they have left. 

Hunterdon Central High School in New Jersey offers a model similar worth considering. The school promotes community service and creates opportunities for students to get involved, but does not require a set number of hours to graduate. Research from the National Center for Education Statistics found that students who chose to volunteer in high school were 54% more likely to continue volunteering two years later. 

If APS and Midtown wants students who give back, this is the model to follow. It both allows students to work community service into their lives, as well as taking pressure off the requirement of graduating.