March 5th, 2021
The Ontario Ministry of Education has made revisions to the community involvement requirements for the 2020-21 school year so that students will not be adversely impacted by the ongoing challenges related to COVID-19.
Updates:
- Students graduating in 2020-21 school year are required to earn a minimum of 20 community hours (reduced from 40 hours). This recognizes that graduating students have had barriers to earning their community involvement hours last school year and may continue to experience barriers this school year.
- Students can earn hours via virtual volunteering (e.g. connecting with seniors online, organizing virtual fundraising events).
- Schools can offer opportunities for students to earn volunteer hours during the day while at school.
- Students can earn hours for duties performed at home (e.g. walking siblings to school, helping younger siblings with school work).
- Students aged 14 years and older can earn a maximum of 10 hours from paid employment. Students counting paid employment are required to complete a reflection exercise indicating how their work contributed to the service of others.
