By Sydnia Yu
For some, it was a last-minute scramble to paint school bathrooms, walk dogs, even babysit for neighbourhood kids.
But all of Centretown’s Grade 12 students still managed to scrape together 40 hours of required volunteer work in time to graduate in June.
That’s in stark contrast to media reports last spring, which warned that up to a third of Ottawa high school students might not graduate for failing to meet the province’s volunteer requirements.
The Grade 12 students are the first to graduate under the high school curriculum introduced in 1999, which requires students to complete 40 hours of community service during their four-year program.
At Immaculata High School, principal Thomas D’Amico suggests the excessive media attention made everyone aware of the potential dilemma.
“I think it helped and made us educators keep focused and have plans in place,” he says. “We didn’t want to be in the position where a student couldn’t graduate.”
At Lisgar Collegiate, principal Patricia Irving says they did not have any students who were academically eligible to graduate but lacked volunteer hours.
It was a similar situation at Glebe Collegiate.
“It wasn’t an issue for us. It looked bad in the papers when it was published,” says principal Frank Allan.
“Everyone did what was needed and I didn’t hear a single case having difficulties.”
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board were not available to confirm official numbers.
Many high schools imposed an artificial deadline for the volunteer hours in May prior to graduation in June.
But each school had different methods of reminding students to complete their hours.
Immaculata provided students with records of their volunteer hours. Glebe Collegiate made announcements. Lisgar Collegiate displayed posters.
Darl DiMillo, a guidance counsellor at Immaculata, says while most students completed their hours in March, getting the paperwork to prove it required quite the chase.
“We got into May and were pushing 50 to 20 per cent of students who were not eligible to graduate,” he says.
Immaculata’s principal met individually with students in danger of missing the school’s May 31 deadline and provided extensions to students who were a few hours short.
Some large organizations turned away volunteers in January after being deluged with students, but D’Amico says there’s no shortage of opportunities for students.
He adds charities contact the school every week looking for volunteers.
While schools notified students of opportunities available to them, it was primarily the responsibility of students to find their own placements.
Maya Santoro, an 18-year-old graduate of Glebe Collegiate Institute who started at Carleton University this fall, recalls how she frantically searched for volunteer positions in February.
“People were taking it as a joke because it wasn’t enforced until last year,” she says.
“Once a week, close to the end of the year, they would keep saying in the announcements, ‘We have 200 students who aren’t going to graduate’.”
Immaculata student Nemanja Baletic, 16, says he won’t let himself get caught in the same panic – though he hasn’t started volunteering yet.
“Maybe I’ll just procrastinate until Grade 12.”
But this year’s crop of senior students has learned not to wait until the last minute.
Erica Leslie, a 17-year-old Lisgar student, says she’s already completed half the required hours because she saw her friends stressed and scrambling last year to get their hours.
“When it came to the end of the year, people were so serious and people were flipping out especially with the double cohort, so it prepared us a little better.”