<p>The same thing happened to my S, who he did hundreds of hours in a national temple youth group in an elected office. NONE of his best stuff “counted” for his h.s. community service hour count. He did use the national youth group work for his essays because it was a key aspect of his high school years. As an example, that national youth group cleared brush in downtown Buffalo after a major storm, so they often did community service for the larger Community here, but it didn’t count at all.</p>
<p>He also wanted, as a senior, to volunteer in the local temple’s Hebrew school on Tuesday afternoons. The odd thing is that same Hebrew school gets teachers aides from 10 different h.s. in the area, and some will count it for CS, others won’t. That made it feel unfair because some schools in this region let it ride through, but not his.</p>
<p>He was told that the history of this issue was some faith groups (not ours, not yours I bet) considered going door-to-door peddling religious literature as “community service” and from that, the public schools concluded it was no real “service” to the community to do this. Then that kind of spread into all of these afterschool Hebrew and Sunday/Wednesday schools.</p>
<p>He was also told that if the HEbrew school helped people outside of their own relgiion, that could count. Sometimes the teachers aides go and fill thanksgiving baskets for the needy, and pick apples that go to area homes where people aren’t all of the same faith. But most of the time is spent just teaching the faith and language to those within that faith community. </p>
<p>It really IS community service, but to one’s own community, I think. I honestly don’t think too many kids suffer from too much help in their own church that they have to be pried away from it, but maybe some need that exposure. That doesn’t seem the point of this limitation, however. </p>
<p>My S filled up his required hourly count on something he considered lame, compared to this really interesting activity. Probably you’ll do that too, because you won’t have time to really question this fully or get it overturned.</p>
<p>So I agree it’s a bit unfair, because you are doing a community service to your own community. </p>
<p>To me there’s a HUGE difference between “proselytizing” (spreading your gospel to others in town) versus practicing service and teaching your own community. I can’t figure out how those two got so confused in the minds of
educrats who ruled down thumbs on kids helping in Sunday and HEbrew schools. </p>
<p>Everybody needs help of some kind or another, and I don’t see why it must be in the context of a homeless shelter (where a kid might be overwhelmed and not that helpful) compared to working with little kids in a classroom, where you really can offer a lot of service, or as in this case, under the supervision of experienced teachers! </p>
<p>I agree it’s not fair, but like you, he was stuck with it. BTW, anybody from any faith who wanted to learn Hebrew could come to this school…it’s just that nobody else does! By charter, it teaches Hebrew and Jewish customs to all comers. Just that the only ones who actually come are Jewish. The fact that he helped int he language division, not the religious teachings classrooms, was irrelevant; none of it counted.</p>
<p>BTW, in Canada, they approach it quite differently. Hebrew, Chinese, and scores of other languages are called “Heritage Languages” and these afterschools receive some government subsidy. For this reason, they put all the Hebrew on the weekday afternoons and save alll the religious teaching for Sundays, thereby qualifying for help (just as the Vietnamese language schools, etc. get) in the language component only, not the religious.</p>
<p>Maybe if we all just “babble in tongues” it should get credit as a “language” j/k</p>