COVER STORY : Drafted Into Service : Some Say Mandatory Community Work for Students Teaches Values, But Others Consider It Forced Labor

Working at an orphanage in Mexico would qualify.

So would making quilts for a battered women’s shelter.

But singing in the glee club, raking your neighbor’s leaves or playing on a sports team probably would not.

As spring semester enters high gear, educators at Temple City Unified School District are compiling a list of projects students can undertake this fall, when the district institutes a new graduation requirement that pupils complete 100 hours of community service.

Temple City is believed to be the second district in Los Angeles County to require community service, a trend hotly debated among national educators. The first was South Pasadena Unified School District, which requires 45 hours of community service. At least three other school districts in the San Gabriel Valley are studying such programs.

The idea has become increasingly popular as educators fear traditional education has failed to teach students citizenship and values. As families shatter and society fragments, many believe that instilling a sense of shared community is as important as teaching the three Rs.

“This teaches the value of service, linking what kids learn in the classroom with what they do later in life,” said Clint Taylor, superintendent of Temple City Unified. “It is more than the traditional lesson in the classroom; it’s an actual encounter with someone or some agency that needs help and the reward for the student is that much greater.”

But the concept has its critics, who fear schools may be legislating morality and wonder who will decide whether students will be able to volunteer at Operation Rescue or at a nonprofit abortion clinic.

“We’ve had some parents say, ‘My son plays football and he should get community service credit for entertaining the community,’ ” said Janice Murasko, a Temple City High School teacher who is drafting the district’s community service program.

“We do have some gray areas,” she said. “Some of these things are going to be really difficult to decide . . . We’re going to have to deal with them when they come up.”

A longtime English teacher, Murasko became hooked on the concept of community service last year after reading about it in Teaching Tolerance, a national magazine for educators.

“I kept bugging my principal until he said, ‘Form a committee.’ I never dreamed it would get this far but it just kept rolling.”

Murasko, 37, quickly got the project off the ground. She obtained grants from the Berger Foundation in Arcadia and from Kaiser Permanente. The grants paid for curriculum development, part of her salary and printing brochures.

She visited other districts to evaluate their programs. And she attended a three-day educational conference on community service in San Mateo. This fall the district is freeing her up from teaching to run the program full time.

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Murasko now spends her days visiting classrooms to explain the concept, lining up organizations that need help and conferring with students, faculty and parents about what types of activities should constitute community service. Currently, students can volunteer at about 50 organizations--among them, Habitat for Humanity, AIDS Project Pasadena and the Humane Society--or can get approval for a self-designed project.

Temple City educators also want to use the community service program to build self-esteem among at-risk students and have been working with local businesses to organize training programs. Murasko said Home Depot has agreed to train students in carpentry, plumbing and painting. The students will then be paired with a community volunteer and sent to make minor repairs at the homes of needy senior citizens.

Although launched after South Pasadena’s program, Temple City’s project is significantly different.

South Pasadena requires students to turn in a form--signed by a supervisor--verifying they have completed their required hours of community service. Temple City envisions a more demanding program. Murasko wants to incorporate the community service requirement into social studies classes by making students write essays or keep journals about their experiences.

“We think organized reflection is one of the most important things; you have to allow time for it,” she said.

The idea of incorporating community service into the education system was first proposed in a 1983 report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Princeton, N.J., as a way to promote citizenship and give students a sense of civic responsibility.

At least 200 schools nationwide--both public and private--require community service and thousands more run voluntary service projects, according to the National Center for Service Learning in Early Adolescence, a research program at the City University of New York.

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Schools in St. Louis require 240 hours. In Detroit, students must complete 200 hours. Laguna Beach Unified School District requires 40 hours. In 1992, Maryland became the first state to require all high school students to perform 75 hours of community service.

But community service has also sparked controversy. Maryland’s decision came in spite of heavy opposition from the state teachers’ union, principals, superintendents, parents and students. Some argued it would create more paperwork for schools already suffocating in red tape. Others said it could penalize needy students, who might have to work after school. There was also concern over insurance liability when students work off campus and concerns that such work would infringe on the school day.

Some educators also objected to making it a requirement.

“To mandate something that is a volunteer activity is Orwellian,” said Sandra Stotsky, a research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Community service is something that comes from within you, and if it’s mandated, it’s not really service, it’s a chore, and I could see it turning kids off.”

Others said community service could pose problems if it intersects with religion and politics.

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“Who decides what is legitimate service and which activities, projects and organizations are included?” asked Chester E. Finn Jr., a professor of education at Vanderbilt University and a former assistant secretary of education in the Reagan Administration.

“That’s a very sensitive issue, because what will strike one person as legitimate will strike another as political or religious,” Finn said. “What if someone says, ‘I want to do my volunteer service in an abortion clinic, or trying to help Operation Rescue shut down abortion clinics.’ Should this really be allowed to count for school credit?”

Others make strong arguments for community service programs. Andrew Furco, a research associate with the National Center for Research in Vocational Education at UC Berkeley, said such programs, when integrated into the curriculum, enhance academic performance, self-esteem and career awareness.

Furco, who is assessing the effects of community service programs, said a 1989 study by the National Center on Effective Secondary Schools in Madison, Wis., found that students engaged in community service showed improved problem-solving skills and factual knowledge.

“The outcome varies from student to student,” said Furco. “It can affect them in intangible ways and sometimes the outcomes don’t really manifest themselves until five or 10 years later.”

Erin Nakayama, 17, is already reaping gains from community service at South Pasadena High School. A senior, she has been volunteering at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena since she was 14. She long ago racked up her requisite 45 hours but continues as a candy striper because “it makes me feel good to help out.”

Nakayama, who delivers dinner trays to patients, answers phones and dons surgical scrubs to work with sterile hospital equipment, estimates she has logged more than 200 hours at the hospital. She believes all schools should mandate community service.

“I think it’s a good idea. People should be willing to give up their time to help out, because it makes you a well-rounded person,” Nakayama said.

Not surprisingly, community organizations also embrace the idea.

Carol Reynolds, who coordinates student volunteers at Huntington Memorial, describes the South Pasadena students as bright, open and a boon to the hospital staff.

“Every time they run an errand for someone it frees up a nursing person to care for a patient,” said Reynolds, who supervises about 20 students from South Pasadena High School.

For Shirley Chien, 18, doing community service at the South Pasadena Library three years ago led to a part-time job as a library clerk. Now a student at Cal State Los Angeles, she is mulling a career as a children’s librarian.

“At first, I thought that community service was sort of silly, but then when you start you realize it’s an opportunity to get work experience,” Chien said.

Although some students embrace community service, others find it a doctrinaire drain on their time.

“School’s hard enough. Why should I have to go mow someone’s lawn when I have plenty of my own schoolwork to do?” said Chris Proffit, 17, a South Pasadena High School student.

“I think it should be optional,” said Bianca Quintero, 14. “It’s good for the community and everything but a lot of kids just don’t want to do it; most of us are really busy.”

In South Pasadena, where the program has been in place for at least six years, many parents--including the president of the Parent-Teacher Assn.--support community service. The 3.5-square-mile community is tightknit and has a long tradition of volunteerism. Many parents are active on civic and charity boards. Even the police chief volunteers in an adult literary program.

School officials praise the program. “It’s been part of the fiber of the community for years,” said Anita Thompson, South Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent for instructional services. “This gets kids off the street, gives them something to do. We know from self-esteem studies that when you assist others you gain an appreciation of yourself.”

But while some South Pasadena students get credit for delivering meals to the disabled or reading to the blind, others can fulfill the same requirement by working on their school homecoming or managing a sports team--activities that some students are not sure enhance the community or their own education.

Donald Dorris, 15, said he helped set up the South Pasadena Fair but did not apply that to his community service requirement. “I could have gotten credit . . . but I didn’t do it for that. It hasn’t helped me learn anything,” he said.

Students at South Pasadena can submit their own proposals for community service, which school officials approve if they are deemed appropriate. Erika Weingarten, 15, who is interested in politics, said she received credit for volunteer work she did for Democratic candidates during two recent elections. Weingarten staffed phone banks and worked with computer mailing lists, which she said taught her employment skills.

In contrast to the program’s ready welcome among parents in South Pasadena, Temple City is already fielding some complaints, although Murasko said they are few. One critic is Jeffrey Aemmer, who has an 11th-grader and a seventh-grader in Temple City schools. He said the district has no right to require his children to do community service.

“Their job is to educate my children,” Aemmer said. “Community service, that’s my job. My children are already involved with community activities like Scouts and the church.”

Aemmer questioned district plans to tie volunteer work to social studies classes.

“One thing they use to hype their program is to tie it into curriculum, but I find it difficult to believe that putting a gallon of paint over graffiti on a freeway wall relates to curriculum,” Aemmer said.

Murasko said requiring community service can raise some hackles, but said most of the resistance vanishes once parents and students learn their wide variety of choices.

When first told about the program, one high school student feared he would have to wear an orange vest and go pick up trash on the highway. He was so upset he started a petition to rescind the program.

But after Murasko explained the program in depth, the youth became enthusiastic and announced he wanted to design his own project. This fall, the student will fulfill his requirement by giving art lessons to senior citizens.

“We can work out almost anything within reason,” Murasko said. “Our philosophy is that a kid has to serve in their area of interest or you’re defeating the purpose.”