The Problem
The purpose of Spartan Service Week is to develop a sustainable program for West Hall High School students to understand and participate in service learning. This is one of our school improvement plan goals for this year.
We have 3 primary goals:
1. Plan and execute a Service Learning Week emphasizing application of soft skills in the community from Oct 17-21.
2. Help 9/10th graders log 40 hours and 11/12th graders log 75 hours following the HCS Scorecard by increasing ongoing student service learning opportunities throughout the year, leveraging various student organizations.
3. Develop a method for students to track their service hours throughout high school.
Our intended outcomes include:
Service learning provides opportunities for students
• to make a meaningful contribution to their community and society
• to develop and apply academic knowledge, personal skills and social skills in real-life situations and
• to apply soft skills such as decision-making, problem-solving, initiative, responsibility and accountability for their actions.
Service learning will benefit all involved—students as they continue developing skills and knowledge applied to real-life situations outside of their own personal agendas, and the community through service activities.
Our Plan
To kick off Spartan Service, we have developed a week of activities in which all 1100 of our high school students will have an opportunity to participate in.
- Monday - With Meals of Hope, we will package 50,000 meals that will be donated to our local food bank. All students will have an opportunity to package meals that morning. Each meal is balanced, nutritious, and shelf-stable for up to 2 years.
- Tuesday - We will send students to serve at our four feeder elementary schools. This will enable our high school students to give back to their former school and set an example to current elementary students for what to expect with service when they get to high school. Activities will vary at each school, but will include reading to students, cleaning up a nature trail, organizing teaching materials, painting murals on walls, and much more.
- Wednesday, we will have over 700 students working to clean up our high school and middle school campuses. Students will be working in small teams on a variety of tasks: pressure washing, painting our fence, cleaning, laying pine straw, planting flowers, etc.
- Thursday, all English classes will have students write at least two letters to military men and women to say Thank You for your service to our country. Letters will be delivered to service people over Thanksgiving when they are not able to be at home with their families.
- Friday will conclude with a pep rally highlighting our students hard work and a keynote speaker from Chick-fil-A talking about the value of service.
After our Spartan Service week, we will help students to begin tracking and reflecting on their service hours. Moving forward, we will have a calendar online that increases awareness of on-going service opportunities in our community with an easy way to sign up to participate.