Gaithersburg High School students who take National State Local Government classes can earn Student Service Learning hours during the school day.

A SSL pilot program Harp volunteered to endorse allows GHS students to earn 7 ½ SSL hours each semester for successfully completing a project that advocates their beliefs on issues that matter to them. The students must pass NSL Government for the hours to count.

Harp volunteered to endorse the SSL pilot program along with five other Montgomery County Public Schools NSL Government teachers from Springbook High School, Blake High School, Sherwood High School, Walter Johnson High School and Clarksburg High School. The program has not been approved for county-wide distribution.

In June 2007, Superintendent of MCPS Jerry D. Weast sent a letter to middle and high school students and parents saying MCPS supported the Maryland State Department of Education’s decision to require that, starting with the class of 2011, students must complete 75 SSL hours for graduation. This year’s seniors, juniors and sophomores only have to complete 60.

The 15 SSL hour increase, according to Pamela Meador, the SSL pilot program coordinator for MCPS, was incentive to further develop a program that would allow all students the opportunity to earn SSL hours in a required course rather than in elective courses. “At this current time, we do not have any mandatory course in high school that has service learning activities during the day. This is our attempt to develop one,” she said.

Meador said that a curriculum writer examined NSL Government classes and found that what students are supposed to learn in NSL Government classes can involve SSL activies.

NSL Government classes mainly focus on the processes of political participation. The pilot program requires students to advocate a national, state or local community issue. The objective: give students the opportunity to put into practice what they learn in NSL Government to participate in political process.

The students have to identify an issue, research it and then choose an effective way to advocate their beliefs. Meador stresses the importance of research. “We don’t want them to start promoting and advocating something they don’t know about,” she says.

The students must advocate their issues in an effective and appropriate manner. Meador says appropriate ways to take action include writing petitions, letters, editorials and making powerpoint presentations. The final part of the project has students reflect on their process, analyzing how effective it is.

Some in Harp’s class advocated that there should be better homeless care in Maryland. One person decided to write an e-mail to Senator Benjamin Cardin. Harp would be copied on the e-mail.

But sophomore James Lionetti created a petition that instantly gained attention from his peers. Lionetti said that when starting the project, newspaper stories intrigued him. “I discovered that news stories don’t cover what’s fully happening,” he said.

But instead of focusing on The Washington Post or The Gazette, Lionetti decided to start a petition against GHS’s high school newspaper, The Blue & Gold. Lionetti said the petition would persuade The Blue & Gold “to fully cover what’s going on at the school.”

Lionetti argued that The Blue & Gold did not adequately inform students about the staph infections at GHS and that school violence, such as bullying, is not covered. The petition had at least 23 signatures on it. “I didn’t think my project would go this far,” Leonetti said.

However, when Meador heard about Lionetti’s petition, she said that it is not the intent of the project to advocate issues within the school. The idea, she said, is to focus on broader, national issues like Chesapeake Bay pollution or government wire-tapping.

“There are still a lot of wrinkles to work out,” said Meador. On Nov. 15, SSL coordinators and social studies teachers and supervisors met to discuss the progression of the projects. Harp says that essentially, the pilot program project at GHS has been like a test group, and that “we will determine if it’s a feasible part of NSL. We still don’t know if we’re doing it next year.”

The pilot program projects for Harp’s class are due today. Lionetti will have to write a paragraph explaining his procedure and execution of his project since his petitions have been taken down.