Public Service to Be Required by Laguna High

LAGUNA BEACH — Laguna Beach High School will become the first public school in Orange County and one of a handful in the state to make community service a graduation requirement, the school board decided Tuesday night.

In voting unanimously for the policy, which requires all students to perform 40 hours of public service to graduate, the Laguna Beach Unified School District has moved to the forefront of a nationwide trend, said Todd Clark, executive director of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, a Los Angeles group that promotes such programs.

“It will mean that Laguna Beach will be a district that the entire county and all of Southern California will look to as an example, and for leadership,” Clark said.

The foundation conducted a survey on the subject two years ago for the state Department of Education, Clark said, and found that Cotati-Rohnert Park in Sonoma County and Santa Barbara Unified were the only two school districts to make public service a high school graduation requirement. No surveys have been conducted since then, he said.

However, Clark said the state recently received its first allocation of $1.6 million in federal funds intended to launch similar programs throughout the state, beginning in January. The money can be used to cover the cost of staff, training and materials needed to start community service programs.

“This is a rapidly growing field of interest, both in California and nationally,” he said.

With the Laguna Beach vote pending Tuesday, the prospect won early praise from those who run the city’s nonprofit organizations.

“I am just thrilled at the thought of having more high school volunteers and connecting them with the kind of work Laguna Shanti does,” said Sarah Kasman, director of volunteer services for the AIDS Service group.

A spokeswoman for Friendship Shelter, the city’s only homeless shelter, said performing early community service makes students more likely to volunteer as adults.

“We have a need for volunteers desperately today because of all the funding cutbacks,” said Barbara Clippinger. “When we introduce a nonprofit charity to young people and they see the rewards of volunteering and giving at an early age, it instills in them the wish to continue doing it.”

Educators agree that state budget cutbacks make the timing perfect for a policy that encourages future volunteerism. The trend is likely to continue in Orange County, they say.

James A. Fleming, Capistrano Unified School District superintendent, said a district task force has been working for four months on a plan to link community service with graduation. The plan might require students to work a specific number of hours or complete a “significant (community service) project” before graduation, he said.

Barbara Smith, who has been helping to develop the plan, said Capistrano Unified School District workers have been researching similar graduation requirements in Maryland and Minnesota.

In Pennsylvania, a public service graduation requirement in eight school districts was challenged legally on the grounds that such a demand amounted to “involuntary servitude,” for students, Smith said. A Pennsylvania district court ruled that it did not, she said.

Connie Richard, the student representative to the school board, said she has been talking to members of the Associated Student Body since August, when word first began circulating about the possible requirement.

At first, she said, students were “very enthusiastic but worried” about what work would be acceptable.

But she said the school board has agreed to soothe the students’ fears by polling them about what kind of community service work some are already doing, by coming up with a list of acceptable agencies to work for and by providing guidelines for the work.

Both community groups and the students themselves will benefit from the new policy, advocates said.

Kasman said working with AIDS patients will help students understand the threat of the AIDS virus and drive home the importance of safe sex.

Nancy Jenness, auxiliary president at South Coast Medical Center, said such service can open the door to a career.

“We definitely think kids should be involved because we hope they’ll go into medical careers because of their involvement with the hospital,” Jenness said.

Some Orange County parochial schools, including Cornelia Connelly School of the Holy Child Jesus and Mater Dei and Santa Margarita high schools already require that graduation be tied to community service. Those three schools all demand that students perform 80 hours of community service to get a diploma.

While the Laguna Beach requirement involves only half that amount of time from students--allowing them to spread 40 hours of community work over four years of high school--Clark said it is an important beginning.

“Ten hours a year is a place to start,” he said. “Nobody says, if they like it, they can’t have more.”

The program would begin this year, but 1993 graduates would be required to complete only 10 hours of service.

The Laguna Beach board’s vote Tuesday night was 4 to 0; board member Karen Linden was absent.