At Your Service

Though I complain a lot about this school district, I do have to give them props concerning prom. It’s the district’s policy not to have parents fund prom. Instead prom’s financing depends on how well the students do with their own fundraiser. It’s an opportunity to teach responsibility and hard work.

As a result of the students’ efforts prom always suck. Every year, it sucks. The thing’s held in some sort of county community center, decked-out in its lame county décor. And parents complain and beg to supplement the event, but the school district sticks to its guns. They’ve even stepped things up a notch by offering students a free prom ticket if they do so many hours of community service. That’s pretty cool, right?

It’s cool until I get dragged into it. Day after day kids keep coming by and asking me if they can do community service in my classroom. In my classroom!

I got so tired of explaining to each kid that what the school meant by community service didn’t involve emptying my two waste baskets that I had to make announcements to each of my classes about what to consider for community service: nursing homes, public libraries, parks. That didn’t help. This last kid even asked me to sign his verification sheet regardless. His sound argument was, “nobody is going to know anyway.”

Yikes! I’d hate to say this generation is doomed, but I have a feeling that their idea of working for Habitat for Humanity is going to the construction site and burning the lumber. Who cares? Nobody is going to know anyway.