For Five Hours a Semester, a Look at How the Other Half Lives

NEWPORT BEACH — Good grades and high scores on standardized tests have always been important to both teachers and parents of students at Corona del Mar High School.

A couple of years ago, however, the teachers identified a more elusive goal. They wanted to teach their students to become good citizens.

They felt that, although accomplished academically, the students from the tony neighborhood were graduating with little knowledge of, and certainly no firsthand experience with, the less privileged.

Separated from poverty by an ocean on one side, a bay on another and acres of rolling hills everywhere else, few if any of Corona del Mar’s young have much contact with poor people.

Instituting a community service requirement for graduation was an attempt to bridge that gap and to teach some of Orange County’s wealthiest children to have empathy for those less fortunate than they are.

“This is a real important message to get across to this particular population,” said Mary Schindler, a Corona del Mar parent, “because they are wealthy.”

All students at Corona del Mar, from freshmen to seniors, must complete five hours of community service each semester or they will not graduate from high school.

Although the program has only been in place for a year, school administrators and parents believe the program can already claim some successes.

Corona del Mar High School students have devoted more than 14,000 hours this year cooking and delivering meals for the homeless, collecting clothes for women in domestic violence shelters and tutoring mentally and physically disabled children.

On spring break this year, a group of Corona del Mar students will help build houses for the poor in Mexicali.

For some students, such as the members of the Key Club and a pair of Eagle Scouts, the community service overlaps with extracurricular activities they already engage in.

But, for some, such as Alison Scott, it has been the first time they have confronted tragedy.

“It was really sad. Some of the women had bruises on their faces,” said Scott, 15, who delivered clothes to women in a battered women’s shelter. “But it was good because they were really happy at the end.”

Her mother, Mary Ann, was even more pleased with the outcome. That night, she said, her daughter asked questions about domestic violence.

“The impact on her was tremendous because she had never seen anything like that around here,” Mary Ann Scott said. “In this program, they get to see these things firsthand.”

Likewise, Eric Weithorn said he was shocked by what he saw during his community service. The 15-year-old helped at a free dental clinic in Anaheim.

“I never would have thought the amount of people who showed up would show up. It showed me a lot of people are out there without benefits to take care of themselves,” he said.

Devoting time to charities is more common as a graduation requirement at private schools, particularly parochial schools. Some parents and administrators at public schools have not wanted such a requirement because the hours must be completed on the students’ free time.

Laguna Beach High School is the only other public school in Orange County that requires its students do volunteer work to graduate.

So far, Corona del Mar’s families seem to have embraced the idea. Only one parent filed a complaint that the requirement put a burden on the student.

The students themselves were the hardest to sell on the program. But by performing the good deeds, they are learning the lesson’s importance.

“It’s easy to get lulled into a false sense of security here,” Melinda Smith, 13, said one afternoon while making sandwiches for homeless people, “because you think the whole world is like this.”