Chatsworth High School

Class of 2008 Special Notice

Attention class of 2008! Do not forget to do this graduation requirement. Please read the information below to learn more.

Two years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District added Service Learning as a required component to earn a diploma for students graduating in the class of 2007 and beyond. Chatsworth High School has implemented a plan to guarantee that all students who will be graduating in 2008 have the opportunity to complete a Service Learning project.

What is Service Learning?
Please see the back of this sheet for LAUSD's formal explanation of Service Learning.

How will Chatsworth High School integrate Service Learning into the classroom?
To ensure that all students fulfill LAUSD's mandate for Service Learning, U.S. History teachers will offer Service Learning projects in their classes. Eleventh grade students who are not taking a U.S. History course will still be required to complete a Service Learning project. Therefore, CHS plans to offer Service Learning projects in other classes and departments, enabling students to have many opportunities to complete the Service Learning requirement.

Can students complete a Service Learning project on their own?
CHS expects all students to successfully complete a classroom-based Service Learning project. Provisions will be made for all eleventh grade students to work on a school-supervised Service Learning project. Each project must have administrative approval and be supervised by a teacher or administrator. Students will not be able to fulfill the requirement on their own.

What happens to the Community Service requirement?
Chatsworth High School's Leadership Council has decided that there is significant value to both programs, and enough difference between the two, to continue to require that students perform community service as well as complete the Service Learning project. However, it may be possible for a Service Learning project to fulfill the Community Service requirement.

For further information: Please call Warren Jarvis at 818-678-3409.

Service Learning for the Class of 2007 and Beyond
Service Learning is a teaching/learning strategy in which students learn and develop through active participation in high quality service that meets the needs of a community. Service Learning strategies integrate into and enhance the rigorous academic curriculum. Service Learning is aligned with the state standards, fosters civic responsibility, and provides structured time for student reflection.

Los Angeles Unified School District Bulletin No. 307 (rev.)

ELEMENTS OF HIGH-QUALITY SERVICE-LEARNING

Core Academic Learning - The service experience enhances the knowledge, value, or skill goals of the class or school. The service-learning experience is an effective instructional strategy that is aligned to the state content standards identified for the course.
Meaningful Service - The service experience helps to increase each student's sense of civic responsibility, meets a real need in the community as defined by the community, is appropriate to the student's age or development, is well organized, and results in a valued outcome.
Student Voice - Students assist in planning, implementing, and evaluating the service-learning experience.
Reflection - Students reflect prior to the service-learning experience to plan and prepare for the activities, during the experience to review and assess, and after the service-learning experience to evaluate the process and the activities.
Collaboration - All stakeholders, including administrators, social service agencies, businesses, community and college partners, parents, students, and teachers, are involved in planning, implementing, and evaluating the service-learning experience.

Service Learning projects may include activities such as the following:

Tutor younger students in a subject you excel in
Coach physically disabled students in a team sport
Assist second-language speakers in enrolling their children in school
Tutor non-English speaking students in English
Participate in a local Habitat for Humanity home construction project
Befriend a student struggling with mental illness
Spend time with the elderly at a nursing home by visiting and listening to their stories
Clean-up a local river, stream or lake
Sing and play games with children suffering from HIV/AIDS
Help to prepare and serve food in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter
Plant a community garden with community members
Organize a Read-a-Thon in your school or neighborhood
Offer your clerical skills to a local Special Olympics office