Community Service

At Bitney, Community Service is a graduation requirement.  All students are expected to devote at least 150 hours of time to community support activities during their high school career.  Students who enter the school in their junior year must complete 100 hours before graduation; entering seniors must complete 50 hours.  Community service may be fulfilled in a variety of ways, either on-campus or off-campus. It may also be fulfilled during school hours. For example, student teaching assistants earn 60 hours of community service for each academic semester they help to support.

The community service requirement is completely separate from the senior project, and hours spent on one may not be applied toward the other.  In addition, while volunteering or completing an internship at a for profit business is an extremely valuable experience, such a commitment typically does not meet the “spirit” of service to others that we are seeking to imbue in our students. 
 
While the school provides ample opportunity for students to fulfill their hours, we also strongly urge that students seek out and create their own “opportunities” in the greater community by volunteering at a church or non-profit group of their choice. We continue to nurture relationships with many area non-profits, schools, and businesses in order to create solid community partnerships, and a couple of times a year the entire school devotes a half day or an entire school day to community service projects in the greater community.
 
Our just completed WASC visitation found our emphasis on requiring all students to complete a community service component a significant “strength” of Bitney College Prep.

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