“Shaping the minds and the hearts of the people who will change the world.”

Spelled out in bold, platinum letters, this mission statement is installed in the heart of the Upper School, right above Head of School Bryn Roberts’ office. It catches the eye of every student that passes through, or sits in the Summit Center, broadcasting an ideal that is supported but not acted upon. Students welcome such declarations of change, but do they live by all these words?

Community service is not a priority at St. Paul Academy and Summit School, despite its relevance to our mission statement. Recently, the attitude around volunteerism has gotten worse, as this year’s sophomore class hit a record low in completion of their twelve required service hours per student. As of now, the general attitude around volunteering seems to be that it is not worth the time or effort.

While student groups like Community Action and Service do a good job of engaging students in service, the rest of the school is falling behind. Community service should not just be the responsibility of a select few who organize bake sales or the occasional field trip. Flexible requirements and lack of concrete structure regarding service at SPA has led to a culture of indifference towards volunteering.

Under the present structure, SPA students complete a total of twenty-four required service hours in the four years of Upper School. By contrast, Mounds Park Academy students complete 60 hours, minimum over the four years. Breck requires 20 hours of community service per year, with another 72 hours as part of the May project in junior or senior years. Blake has a paid administrator, a PK-12 Director of Service Learning, dedicated to helping students find service opportunities, local and global, to engage in a culture of volunteering and connect to their community. Our independent school peers provide strong models we can learn from.

The SPA service learning model can and should change. Instead of having a bi-annual Service Day, SPA could have one every semester. Twenty hours of community service could be required for each student, grades 9-12, per year. An SPA Director of Service Learning position could help students find opportunities in causes that they are passionate about. At events like Awards Assemblies, SPA could provide recognition for students who volunteer, proving that enthusiasm and success in academics and athletics is no more important than reaching out into the larger community.

At SPA, students are constantly wrapped up in trying to find intellectual, philosophical, and policy-based solutions to major problems in classes; as a result, they fail to recognize the change they could make with hands-on volunteering in the larger community.

Volunteering should not be seen as a chore, something done on the side that has no real impact on the world or the people that live in it. Service learning has the potential to become something SPA is proud of.

Discussing solutions for problems is important, but when this intellectual endeavor gets in the way of acting locally, students need to question whether or not their time and abilities are being properly used.

It is time to live the mission and invest in community service.