The Piedmont Highlander

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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Service learning temporarily suspended due to funding cut

Service+learning+temporarily+suspended+due+to+funding+cut

The annual half-day, school wide service learning project will be in suspended this year due to the reduction of a Piedmont Education Foundation (PEF) grant. The afternoon Day on the Green activity is still scheduled to occur this year.

Principal Brent Daniels made this decision last spring after the PEF grant was reduced by 50 percent. The grant originally paid for the service learning coordinator position, and was equivalent to 20 percent of a full-time teacher salary.

“The grant from PEF funded the position at 100 percent, and when that funding went down to 50 percent, the [high school] was going to have to make up the difference and that would have been a new cost,” Daniels said.

Along with the service learning coordinator position, which was approximately $18,000, the service learning project last year was a $40,000 endeavor due to costs for transportation, coordinator positions, food and professional development, Daniels said.

Daniels said that he did have the option to use some money that is allocated towards classes to make the service learning coordinator position whole. However, he said, he instead chose to make sure the school maintained a full academic program at the sacrifice of the service learning project.img_1678

“The less FTE we have towards our academic program, in terms of [the traditional] teacher-student classroom, results in higher class sizes,” Daniels said. “Based on the information I had last spring, prior to the close of school, I felt that it was best to communicate to the different groups that the program would be in abeyance for a year.”

During this abeyance period, the fall election and vote on Prop 55, an extension of the income tax that supports schools, will help clarify if potential funding for service learning will be available.

“We will have an opportunity to look at our budget from last year and our budget from this year to see if we have the ability to continue the program the way it was once initiated, with the schoolwide learning model,” Daniels said.

Besides just the financial issue, Daniels also said that the new instructional calendar has service learning competing against AP testing, CAASPP testing and the pilot Next Generation Science Field test. In addition, Day on the Green is now only a week before finals.

“Everytime we have a type of program that takes students out of their normal instructional day, it impacts student to teacher opportunity,” Daniels said.

Service learning at PHS started five years ago when a group of teachers and administrators looked into improving campus climate and culture. This coincided with the greater push for project based learning in education, where real life skills are brought into the classroom, said history teacher and former service learning coordinator Courtney Goen, who was a part of this original group.

“I’d be hard pressed to find a person who did community service, who didn’t walk away feeling better,” Goen said. “You didn’t solve the world’s problems, but it feels good to do some of those things. So we were thinking maybe that was the ticket.”

Daniels said that service learning helps students develop interpersonal and intrapersonal skills by giving them the opportunity to identify a potential need, do research and use creativity to come up with a potential solution to the problem.

“Service learning is not just volunteering at the food bank,” Goen said “It’s thinking about why, looking at poverty levels, understanding what kind of people need services from the food bank and doing that in a social studies class.”

Three years ago, service learning evolved into an annual half-day project where each grade participated in different activities. Freshman worked on projects related to the environment, sophomores with discrimination, juniors with homelessness and seniors with economic disparity.

“I think it is especially important in an affluent community such as Piedmont that we are aware of our privilege and are aware of the bigger and wider community, that can be globally,” said former service learning leader senior Hanna Marcus. “I think it is a great opportunity to kickstart students into community service.”

Previous projects included building solar ovens, making Public Service Announcements, creating toiletry kits for homeless teens and doing work with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.

“I always remember that feeling when I was in highschool of, ‘When am I going to use this? Why is this important? Why do I need to know it?’” Goen said. “If it’s connected with some kind of community service it adds more meaning and value to what you are learning. It’s not just something that you study for a test to get into college for, there is actually a real purpose in understanding these concepts.”

However, in the Challenge Success survey given to 75 percent of the school in April, only 14 percent of students responded that the school wide service learning day was quite or very effective. Thirty three percent of students responded that they were unaware of any change.

“I may not have explicitly talked to students [about cutting service learning], but their voice was heard during the Challenge Success survey that they took,” Daniels said.

Marcus, on the other hand, said that she believes the survey is outdated. As a result, she sent out an email to the entire school asking the question, “Service learning has been cut, did you find it impactful? Do you want it to come back?” Currently she has over 220 replies and just over 90% responded said yes, service learning was impactful.

“It really encourages a generation of advocacy, awareness, empathy and action,” Marcus said.

As for now, Site Council is developing the single plan for student achievement, and service learning is on the Oct. 6 meeting agenda.

“I look forward to our school looking at this new reality, with this reduction in grant funding and looking at a new instructional calendar, and determining how in this new landscape we can continue service learning in a way that we feel is beneficial for students, teachers and the community,” Daniels said.

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