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Community Involvement

All secondary students in the province of Ontario are required to complete a minimum of 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. The forms and additional information are provided below.

For students graduating in the 2020-21 school year, the community involvement graduation requirement will be reduced to a minimum of 20 hours. This recognizes that graduating students have had barriers to earning their community involvement hours last school year and there may be continued barriers this school year.

Students may wish to consider virtual volunteering, such as connecting with seniors, organizing virtual fundraising events and facilitating discussions with newcomer youth. Outdoor volunteer opportunities could include, for example, picking up litter.

Volunteer opportunities, such as connecting young people to be technology mentors to seniors, can be found through agencies such as Spark Ontario.

In addition, the Ministry is providing increased flexibility in how all secondary students can earn hours in 2020-21, as follows:

  1. Schools will waive the restrictions that do not allow students to earn hours during the time allotted for the instructional program on a school day, or duties normally performed in the home (e.g., walking a younger child to and from school, helping younger siblings with school work).
     
  2. Students aged 14 years and older can count up to a maximum of 10 hours from paid employment towards their earned hours. Students counting paid employment towards their graduation requirement will be required to complete a reflection exercise indicating how their work contributed to the service for others. A copy of this journal reflection can be found on the Grand Erie website.
     

Schools will follow Grand Erie’s processes for collecting, recording, and validating hours. An updated “Notification of Completion of Community Involvement Activities” form can be found on the Grand Erie website.
 

Benefits of 40 Hours of Community Involvement:

  • Gain valuable experiences working with volunteer groups.
  • Learn about service to people and organizations
  • Fulfill the compulsory diploma requirement
     

Notification of Completion of Community Involvement Activities Form

Grand Erie’s liability insurance policy will protect students and community sponsors from litigation arising during the forty hours of community activities, other than those involving negligence.

Workplace or other accident insurance is not provided under the Board’s insurance policy. Parents should consider purchasing student accident insurance if personal coverage is insufficient.

For more, obtain insurance and Students and Accidents information.