AMPA Senior Keyana Ferguson tries her best to come to school on time without transportation. She has to get on the bus and the train just to get to school and to be on time. She also has to go through the troubles of the train being crowded and sometimes even having to worry about her personal safety. It takes a lot just to make sure she gets to school by 8:30 in the morning.
So, she doesn’t always get to school on time and that is what contributes to her hafving poor attendance. Like many Hamilton seniors, she now has community service hours to complete.
Service hours are only given to seniors who have missed more than seven days with unexcused absences or have a certain amount of unexcused period absences. Hours were calculated by staff and distributed to students via email.
Students that receive community service hours have to complete a collective of 10 hours on campus and if they have more than 10 hours accumulated, they have to come on Saturdays at 8 in the morning to do community service.
Keyana has 28 community service hours to fulfill before she can participate in senior activities. She feels as if her having community service hours and having to do it during school hours is a distraction for her.
“I would understand if it was outside of school on the weekend or when we have free time and don’t have to juggle school and community service,” she said.
Keyana said that doing both community service and trying to maintain her grades was difficult for her.
Humanities Senior Solae Floyed has a different outlook on things. She feels as if the hours granted are acceptable. She says it won’t bother her performance academically.
“I barely have any classes so most of the time I’m just sitting around so I can just do [my hours],” Solae said. “I didn’t go to class so I know it needs to be done to graduate.”
Solae said that she still understood the effects of her absences and service hours.
She said, “It is the consequence I received for not going to class.”
Staff have equally emphasized the importance of the hours and why they were given out in general. He said they’re a consequence and a lesson to students to apply themselves to come to school consistently.
Mr. Ace, one of the assistant principals on campus, said that he wants students to understand why the hours are important.
“The reason why students have to do community service is because it’s a way for students to give back when errors are made,” said Mr. Ace. “Community service is a tool that is not punitive but supports the development of students on campus.”
