The community service requirements to be a member of the Piedmont Honor Society have been updated and increased for the class of 2028 and any following classes.
The new requirements increase the amount of community service hours needed to be in the Honor Society to 25 hours per year for sophomore, junior, and senior years, according to PHS Principal David Yoshihara’s newsletter sent out on Oct. 25.
The additional requirement of a three point six GPA remains the same for Honor Society Admission as in previous years. Formerly, the community service requirements were ten hours of service during sophomore year, 15 hours during junior year, and 20 hours during senior year.
However, these lower community service hour standards have not always been the status quo.
“Volunteer hour [requirements] used to be much higher prior to the pandemic, and during the pandemic those hours were reduced,” said PHS Assistant Principal Joseph Marik.
Marik said in conversations with community members and the Piedmont Parents Club there was a desire for Honor Society standards to reflect a certain level of rigor.
“We want to make sure that it is really about students who go above and beyond,” Marik said. “It’s something that students have to put in equal amount of time as a member of the community as well as spending time on their own academic endeavors.”
Marik said the decision to increase hours to 25 was based on other Bay Area school’s community service requirements.
“Most schools were in the area of 20 to 40 hours per year, and we landed on 25,” Marik said.
An additional outside change that may make it harder for students to get to 25 community service hours is the cancellation of the Piedmont Community Church Mexico Trip.
By going to Tijuana, Mexico over spring break to build houses students have been able to fulfill all of their community service hours.
“I received 35 [hours] each year,” said three-time Mexico Trip participant senior Sabrina Carling.
Senior Pastor Steve Schibsted said in the past couple of years approximately 200 students have gone on the trip and prior to the Covid-19 Pandemic there were some years where 300 students attended.
“We’re not a huge church, and to resource a trip like that, both in terms of, financially, people to lead it, adults to help out with it and everything. It’s just, it’s a big lift for a church our size,” Schibsted said.
Additionally, Schibsted said the cost of building material from the organization that Piedmont Community Church worked with increased, making the trip less economically feasible when transportation and other fees were combined.
“[The price] got up to almost $2000 per participant,” Schibsted said.
Though the trip not occurring may seem like a surprise to some of the community, Schibsted said, the conversation of stopping the trip was not a new one.
“I think for a lot of people, they felt it happened all of a sudden, like, was a quick decision, but really it’s been talked about for a number of years,” Schibsted said.
Schibsted said students can still get involved with the Piedmont Community Church without the Mexico Trip while attaining their community service requirements.
“We have a lot of service projects. Once a month, we work through a [volunteer mobilizing] organization in the East Bay called Project Peace,” Schibsted said. “I think if students wanted to work with us on those things, they could.”
Outside of the Piedmont Community Church, many students have found other ways to meet Honor Society requirements.
“[The Piedmont Community Service Crew (PCSC) is] a community service organization based in Piedmont,” said Co-President of Community Service at PCSC and junior Elena O’Connell. “We try to make it so that everybody can do something they want, like cooking, building, environmental work, and [PCSC is] run by mainly youth.”
Of the approximately 100 students currently involved in PCSC, O’Connell said many students just volunteer the number of hours needed for the Honor Society Requirements. However, there is no limit, and some students go up to 60 hours of community service.
Outside of organized service, some students attain their service requirement through different projects.
“I get a lot of volunteer hours from the Consent Assembly, from doing the Diversity Assembly at school, and through ASB volunteer hours,” senior Dahlia Saffouri said.
Other students have gotten volunteer hours through the National Charity League, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Peer Tutoring, and Tobacco Use Prevention Education–among many other volunteer opportunities.
“I volunteer for Running for a Better Oakland, which is an organization that helps inner city youth get active,” senior Caroline Taylor said. “I get to hang out with kids and run with them and hand out snacks and mentor them.”
Many students that haven’t attended the Mexico Trip have done their volunteering outside of the Piedmont community. With changes to Honor Society requirements the freshmen class will have to adapt to the volunteer opportunities available to them, both in and out of Piedmont. However, there is a possibility more changes may come in the future, Marik said.
“The Piedmont Honor Society is its own thing. It doesn’t hold any weight, necessarily,” Marik said. “[In a national program] there are specific requirements that are nationally normed, and your students can become part of a national organization which holds more weight and is more serious in some ways, or rather, is taken more seriously.”
Marik said the potential for national recognition could lead to a change in Piedmont’s current system.
“We are looking at some of these other options to see if we might want to join the National Honor Society or other equivalent programs,” Marik said.
Nonetheless, this change won’t be immediate and will take time and consideration from the community.
“We definitely haven’t spent enough time talking to students,” Marik said. “I think that is a stakeholder that we need to figure out how to get more input from, and if it is something that there is a lot of momentum and energy around that could help us with prioritizing maybe a change or a shift in the near future.”
