The Shared Decision Making Team, Pine View's policy-making committee, is considering requiring 75 "volunteer" hours as a condition for high school graduation. If you are offended by this Orwellian perversion of true, moral, volunteerism, consider the following petition.
Re: SDMT Mandatory "Volunteer" Proposal
Members of the Committee,
Whereas the SDMT is presently considering changing the Pine View
high school graduation requirements and has chosen to not either
solicit student comment or make its proposal widely known such
that the proposal would be available for student comment, the
undersigned concerned students intend to inform the Committee of
the esteem in which its proposal is held. We, the undersigned,
find the following:
1. Pursuant to the Pine View School Mission Statement, Pine View
is committed to a "Tradition of academic excellence."
Administrative efforts that distract Pine View from its mission
are misguided; we must not allow new regulative hurdles to divert
our focus from our "tradition of excellence."
2. A Pine View Diploma should continue to represent mastery of
a field of academic knowledge. Current Diploma requirements serve
to ensure excellence in academics, for example, the 28 total
credit and 3 Foreign Language credit requirements. Indeed, the
appropriate criterion for evaluating diploma requirements is
necessity for academic excellence. Unlike the aforementioned
graduation requirements, a community service requirement is
irrelevant to academic excellence.
3. All non-academic graduation requirements are inherently
arbitrary. Creation of one such requirement sets a dangerous
precedent for the creation of numerous other ill-conceived
graduation requirements.
4. A service requirement is inherently elitist. Implementation
of a service requirement at Pine View, unique in Sarasota County,
implies a sense of noblesse oblige. Because Pine View is not an
elitist school composed of elitist students, imposition of a
service requirement would unfairly burden Pine View's diverse
student body. Some students' financial status necessitates their
employment, while other students have sports obligations. In
order to continue to provide Pine View's unique learning
environment, a diverse student population must not be regulated
out of existence.
5. The notion of mandatory volunteerism is an Orwellian
contradiction. People do not volunteer for mandatory service, but
rather, people are conscripted into mandatory service.
6. Mandating service is counterproductive. Some claim that
volunteerism teaches social responsibility. However, only true
volunteer activity teaches social responsibility. Students
already give their time and talent to benefit their community.
More importantly, such students now choose to volunteer because
they enjoy helping others, and they are well on their way to
learning social responsibility. The mandatory service proposal,
however, is more akin to the mandatory service that is assigned
to petty criminal offenders. Not only would the association
insult every student, but students compelled to render service
will not endeavor to make community service a part of their
lives, but on the contrary, such students will gain a
determination to avoid service in the future.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, urge rejection of the mandatory
service proposal.