Community Service
Desert Shadows Middle School: Service Learning
Eighth grade students will be required to complete 8 hours of community service by the end of the first semester and 8 hours by the end of second semester. This is a total of 16 hours for the year.
First semester hours are due no later than December 8th . All hours received after December 8th will not be accepted. Please encourage your student to complete and turn them in early. Forms can be found at the bottom of this page.
Second semester hours are due no later than May 3rd . All hours received after May 3rd will not be accepted.
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
John F. Kennedy, 1961
It is the goal of Desert Shadows Middle School to incorporate and apply education outside of the classroom. In conjunction with our district and state standards, we’ve established a service learning connection that bridges the classroom, our community, and the world around us. In establishing this application, we are recognizing the growing need in society for individual awareness and sensitivity, and are providing an opportunity for students to learn civic and social responsibility in a manner that reaches beyond book learning and into life.
We hope to expand the civic vision of our adolescents by leading them to explore ways in which they can contribute their gifts of youth and enthusiasm to the world around them. In addition to providing service to those in need, we believe that students reap multiple and enriching benefits that include, but are not limited to, satisfaction, pride, and confidence. Such rewards instill the awareness that commitment and responsibility to others can be mutually beneficial, enhancing gratitude and offering long lasting personal enrichment in ways few other experiences can. The Service Learning component of our curriculum enhances and brings to life a student’s education, broadens the individual, and enriches our society.
When considering activities to complete their Service Learning hours, students should choose events where there is a legitimate need for help with the community or school. Students should keep in mind the difference between a “need” for assistance versus a “desire” for assistance. For example, if a neighbor has a broken leg, there is a legitimate need for help, due to the unfortunate circumstances facing your neighbor, a member of the community. On the other hand, if you are asked to baby-sit the neighbor children while their parents go out to dinner, you are simply providing a service of convenience based on a choice a member of the community is making. Emptying waste baskets or bagging groceries at your parents’ place of work is considered a family responsibility and not community service. You ARE allowed to help your parents at work if the establishment is an organization that benefits the community (i.e. hospital, shelter, nursing home, etc.) However, community service cannot be verified by a parent, it must be verified by a representative of the organization at which your child volunteered. Finally, students cannot miss a day of school to complete their community service. If your child misses school to volunteer at field day for an elementary school or any other school day activity, this will not be accepted as community service.
DSMS Service Learning supports and supplements the PVUSD and State of Arizona Social Studies Standards, listed below:
8.C1.2 Demonstrate civic virtues that contribute to the common good and democratic principles within a variety of deliberative processes and settings.
8.C1.4 Engage in projects to help or inform others such as community service and service-learning projects
8.C4.5 Analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at the local, regional, and global levels, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem. Apply a range of deliberative and democratic procedures to take action and solve the problem.
FACT: By the end of this school year, DSMS students will have contributed more than 20,000 hours of service to our community!
*Students may not count service that requires them to miss school. For example: going to their elementary schools to help with field day.
Here are some of the places/ways where our students have made a difference:
https://www.fmsc.org/get-involved/volunteer
https://www.stvincentdepaul.net/volunteer
-Food Banks
-Animal Rescue (and other shelters
-Church/temple/synagogue/etc.
-Special Olympics
-Retirement Homes/Nursing homes
-Boys and Girls Club of Phoenix
-Salvation Army
-St. Vincent de Paul
-Feed My Starving Children
-Local fire departments
community service form dsms.pdf