Community Partners
As part of the new Secondary School diploma requirements, students starting secondary school from September 1999 onwards must complete 40 hours of community involvement activities in order to graduate. Community involvement activities may take place in a variety of settings, including businesses, not-for-profit organizations, public sector institutions (including hospitals) and informal settings. The students must complete their voluntary activities at times other than during the regular school day, such as before or after school, evenings, weekends or holidays. They must not be paid and they may not do the work of someone who is normally paid to do that work. They also cannot count their community involvement hours towards a credit such as those give for co-operative education.
The District School Board of Niagara has created a Student Passport which each incoming student will receive a plan and record their community involvement hours. Students are encouraged to plan the activities with the help of their parents and as part of the planning process, they must obtain the signature of the community sponsor agreeing to supervise each activity. As an activity is completed, the community sponsor signs the Student Passport to indicate the number of hours that the student was involved in that particular activity. Twice a year, the hours are recorded on each Student Passport and will be used to update the Ontario Student Transcripts and the Provincial Report Cards, which will indicate the number of hours each student has completed to date. Each new student will receive a Community Involvement Information manual that has a detailed list of activities that may or may not be counted towards community involvement hours. Also included in the manual is information on the roles and responsibilities of those involved as well as information on safety and insurance considerations.