Community labor is either voluntary or unionized government workers. Take your pick.
Why is the work almost always menial (garbage collection)?
Please list the alternative skills that these kids can perform.
Why does the work typically involve some eco-component?
If you are a Christian, how about Genesis 1:28? If not, I think teaching kids to care for land beats the hell out of teaching them to leave it alone. Then there's teaching them to despise the people who litter.
Why at the same time is paid employment at useful work so regulated and discouraged, such that a small business man would never want to employ teen workers?
To force small business (usually Republicans) out of business. That makes big business very happy. It's the Democrat way.
Or am I just being an old coot, and should get along with the program?
Neither. You're a bit paranoid in that you can't see the good along with what might be problematic.
Thanks Carry, I may be more than a “bit paranoid”!
Other than being an oxymoronic idea, the usual volunteer work that is accepted by the school is related to “volunteering” to perform menial tasks for the county/city, or volunteer for left-leaning organizations.
Where I am, Boy Scouts duties don't count. Civil Air Patrol service doesn't count either. Neither does volunteering at small or large business.
Note that this is a private school (St. Paul’s — probably Episcopal, although I’m not sure).
My sons attended a Jesuit run college prep school in Houston, and they had a community service requirement that meshed with their school motto — “Men for others”. This was back in the late 1970s. I had never heard of a requirement like this in public school, although I see that lots of schools — public and private — now have similar requirements.
When my sons were at Jesuit many of their classmates fulfilled their service requirement by traveling to South America (with chaperones) and spending the summer in primitive villages giving immunizations to poor children (those were the kids who were on a career path in medicine.) My sons were track and cross country athletes and were required to train every day, 365 days a year. We moved before the younger son did his community service requirement, but my older son fulfilled his by helping out at Head Start programs giving reading readiness tests to inner city kids. He loved it.
So, not all community service work has to be menial tasks.