Students Try Volunteer Work but Some Resist It, Study Finds

More high schools are providing programs for students to volunteer in hospitals, nursing homes and other places, but some educators and teen-agers still resist the idea, a study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said Sunday.

A survey of 1,000 public high schools found that 70% had community service programs, but only 20% forced students to participate.

A previous study indicated that girls outnumber boys 3 to 2 in volunteer programs, in part because boys are reluctant to serve as hospital helpers, nursing-home aides or child-care volunteers.

The Carnegie study said few service programs are tied directly to high school instruction programs and suggested that may be because teachers were never approached to help run the programs “or rejected (their) involvement as one more addition to an otherwise heavy load.”

The report, written by Charles H. Harrison, former executive director of the Education Writers Assn., said that both teachers and parents may need to be convinced that volunteer service is a learning opportunity and not, as one South Brunswick, N.J., parent put it, “wasting kids’ precious time for nothing.”

South Brunswick High School began sending some of its students outside the building each day in 1973 to community service sites and internships. The initial motive was to help the school cope with overcrowding.

The school no longer lacks space, but it still requires juniors to spend one day a week outside school in community service or in outdoor education projects.

Atlanta and Detroit both require some form of community service. And the state school superintendent in Maryland tried to make it a graduation requirement two years ago but was rebuffed.