Service Hours... double dipping ok?

[5yearscouter]

Overall last year scout did usually 12-15 hours of service a month, some months were more just because there was more time or a big project came up.

 

we had to double dipped to cover the rest--but the scouting hours were long since completed for life rank Thank you very much. so then it was up to the view of the school whether double dipping was ok or not, eh?

 

Some things were uncountable at school. for instance,nothing to do with OA service hours would count because they couldn't understand what the heck any of it was, even when broken down to we renovated a bathroom at a campground in the mountains. Eagle project planning(currently on hold for the rest of this fall semester) is not countable for school, but once the actual work begins, those hours will count.

 

Over the summer he volunteered for almost 3 full months as a CIT at summer camp, unpaid, helping boys learn to cook real food all summer. Man that kid is a good cook. He was sick one week so he taught everyone to make homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles as one of their one pot meals.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this young man gets the whole idea of *cheerful service* for others. He doesn't grumble about the work, he readily jumps to help out others. He grumbles about the paperwork of getting everything recorded, signed, approved and the right kind of service on the right form to make the grown ups happy. If he counts collecting food for the food bank and organizing it on the shelves of the food bank for NHS AND for the school requirement of volunteer hours, I don't have a problem with that--I have to work those hours too, adult required for those under 18, so I figure he is justified in that double dipping.

 

Oh and Baden he's enjoying high school just fine--he's in a dual enrollment high school that was his choice of high schools. He takes high school classes and college classes concurrently. He will graduate in

[Basementdweller]

I guess I believe in honesty 5 year.

 

Sorry that is old fashion and obsolete. We are all busy 5 year your son is no different than most youth.

 

If my son is required to do 21 hours of service he will do 21 hours of service. He will understand fulfilling his obligation and not simply so his best.

 

Yes I would give up three saturdays a month at the food bank for 8 hours per day......Son and I are leaving for there now he will load cars for 4 hours today and I will do what ever they ask, just like most saturdays and tomorrow we will serve the community meal for 2 hours at the church.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

I think it depends on what you are using the hours for.

 

If scouting were to say you must have 4 housr of community service, does it mean 4 hours of "scouting only" community service"

If the school says 4 hours of service, does it imply that they arwe school hours and not anybody elses?

 

I mean, 4 hours is four hours.

 

Neither group is saying that the hours are used up, and it doesn't benefit the community if it wasn't in our name.

 

For example : Basement son is going to perform 4 hours service at the food bank. It is 4 hours no matter hopw you look at it. I can see countiung it at school, at scouts, at church and for personal counting ( for whatever reason)

 

Now, wherte I consider it double dipping is if that 4 hours of services is counted this month , and then that same service is counted next month for a differet requirement in the same organazation, wether scouting, church, school, etc...

 

Back when I was on the fire dept, we had a training officer who was creative.

 

We were required to have a minimum of 36 hours a year in ongoing training .

 

Well, I would take the trucks and drive them for about 20 minutes every Saturday just to keep the oil circulating and stave off any flat spots in the tires. I'd then dump the tanks and put fresh water in them ( mostly to run it through the plumbing and pump to wsh away sediment and trash).

 

Well, every time I took a truck out, I'd call dispatch and call in "10 - 7" meaning the truck was considered out of service. After I topped off the fuel, and filled the water tank back up, I'd call dispatch and call the truck "10-8" or back in service.

 

This took about an hour tops for each truck

 

Well, our training officer, who I mentioned is very creative wouyld write up a whole sheet detailing that I participated in 1 hours of vehicle training as well as 1 hour in radio communications, pump operations, maintainance, hoses and nozzels ( because I would flush them too) and dump operations.

 

That was not only double dipping, but sextantular (?) dipping.

 

Mt training officer would creat 6 hours of training out of one hour of actually doing something.

 

Considering I did this to 4 or 5 truck - depending on who else was around - and I have 24 to 30 hours of training written up from 4 to 5 hours of actually doing something.

 

That is wrong. That is lying and that is cheating the system.

 

But, If I take myu son and we go to a food bank, and help unload and organize food ( scouting for food) and we are there for 4 hours, then it is for hours wether scouting is the only one who recognizes it or if the community, the school, the church, Goot Turn for America, or even the govenor recognizes it. That hour is still one hour.

 

 

I see it like this: If somebody sees me picking up a piece of trash off the ground, I cannot say that other people can not see it because the first one did.

 

If one parent thanks me after a pack meeting for doing a great job, I will not refuse to be thanked by others because that meeting time had already been recognized.

 

But I will not write down that I have 1 hour for pack meeting, 1 hour for parent scout interaction, 1 hours of a pack get together, 1 hour of leadership, 1 hour etc...

 

 

 

[BadenP]

5 year

 

Sorry but your reply is just a copout and nothing more. I have had two sons receive their Eagles while they were involved with sports and school activities and they seemed to get everything scheduled just fine. As another poster said your kid is no busier than any other kid these days. So if you think double and triple dipping service hours is okay instead of just being dishonest, what message is your boy getting? Maybe he can hire someone to take his college entrance exams for him since he is so busy. You can rationalize your actions all you want but anyway you slice it it still is a cheat.

[JMHawkins]

BadenP, I'm sorry, where is the dishonesty? The kid did the service hours. Are you saying it doesn't count because he already "got paid" for those hours with some other reward? If so, then we're not talking about service here, we're talking about contract labor.

 

 

[BadenP]

JM

 

You don't seem to get it either, cheating is cheating no matter even if you try to sugarcoat it as double dipping. Kids these days have a hard time seeing the boundaries, and if their scout troop allows to fudging to take place this impression will follow him into adulthood. I am so tired of so many current SM's saying the requirements for Star, Life and Eagle are way too hard and the kids are so busy in school, that is just plain bull. The problem is too many boys wait until they are over 17 before even starting the climb to Eagle, and that is plain too late. Yet I have seen SM's fudge and twist the requirements so much to squeeze a kid in that the process has no meaning to the boy, and neither does the rank. Your job as SM is to advise and be realistic with the boy instead of pushing through a kid who is not ready and really doesnt care with dishonest practices.

 

Yet what you and 5year describe is becoming more prevalent in scouting, and it is clearly hurting the credibility of the organization for every paper Eagle you sneak through the system. None of your corny platitudes will ever change that fact!!

[5yearscouter]

I think someone is reaching a bit too far to call foul.

 

Scout has done his 6 hours for the scout rank before entering high school.

 

His actual required number of service hours this semester of high school are

hours for FFA (5 hours a month)

service hours for NHS (10 hours a month)

and 30 service hours per semester for the high school itself (doesn't have to be exactly 6 hours a month)

 

The school, NHS and FFA don't care if the service is counted for more than one activity--the advisors overlap between these activities, and they sign the paperwork to approve it. There are students who are not in anything, so they have to do what the school requires, 6 hours a month. the school will count service hours in any club toward the 30 hours a semester total so that they aren't requiring students in clubs to do more service than those not in clubs--they want all students to do 30 hours of service a year--in clubs or not.

 

So for instance if my son does 5 hours for FFA, it also counts automatically as 5 hours for school. he doesn't count ffa hours for nhs hours, since nhs hours will mostly be tutoring students which doesn't count for ffa anyway.

 

so any double dipping is for school and club hours. But he usually comes in at 5 hours for FFA and 10 hours for NHS that counts for the school credit. If his scoutmaster decided it also counted toward a rank requirement, that would be up to the scoutmaster to determine whether it makes sense.

 

some months he comes in with 16 hours on an eagle project, and 5 hours ffa and 10 hours nhs, and 8 hours at the food bank, so I really don't see how we are teaching him some un-scout like behavior here.

[Twocubdad]

I really don't see the conflict. From a practical standpoint, our guys are getting far beyond the minimum hours for Star and Life. Double dipping? How about the guys who put in the hours many times over?

 

We had 15 guys do some landscape work at the CO today. No idea if any of them will want to apply the time to service requirements, but I know a number of them were fulfilling requirements for gardening MB. Is that double dipping? What if they count it as an activity for the Tenderfoot requirement? How is that different from counting the service hours for a school requirement?

 

 

[JMHawkins]

BadenP, I don't accept that a community service project recongized by his School or his Band or some other youth organization can't be recongized by his Scout Troop as well. It's community service. The fact that mutliple organizations want to consider it proof of good character or proper development doesn't change that.

 

But you think we're asking him to do it so he can earn a cookie. Or a rank, or grade, or whatever. So yeah, in your view, sure it's cheating to get two cookies for one cookie worth of work, I get that.

 

I just don't think cookies are supposed to be the reward for community service. I think it's supposed to be respect and goodwill, and I have no problem whatsoever with kids earning respect and goodwill from multiple people for the same admirable behavior. There is no cheating or fudging in that, and nothing at all dishonest about it.

(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

[BadenP]

JM

 

Then we have to agree to disagree. If you try long and hard enough you can rationalize almost anything to fit your viewpoint, even though it runs contrary to the conventional truth.

[JMHawkins]

BadenP, you took the words right out of my mouth (grin).

 

Cheers,

[Eagle92]

I admit I am more of the literal minded: it says do 100 hours of service work, you do 100 hours of service work. No ifs ands or buts about it. But that is based upon my HS.

 

See I volunteered as a swimming aid until I got certified as an instructor. Easily got 20 hours a week for 8 weeks for 2 summers. No problem, but my school said you had to do the 100 hours between Jan 1 of JR. year, and Dec 31st of SR. Year. So none of that counted. Ok no problem for me, I'll just teach swim lessons gratis for 100 hours, then get paid. Teacher in charge said no dice since it hints at double dipping.

 

On a different, I see where confusion can come about, especially with kids these days. County I work in has a "service project" requirement, but the interpretation is so vague, that folks coming into the hospital to shadow meet that requirement. Even the local NHS accept shadowing as service.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

Baden,

 

You are right, If you try long and hard enough you can rationalize almost anything to fit your viewpoint, even though it runs contrary to the conventional truth.

 

 

Trouble is, how do you know that you are not the one who rationalized it to be dishonest?

 

If a school say: "Do 24 hours of community service" and they don't specify or restrict it...then basically, the school is saying: "We don't care who it's for or what you do as long as it is community service."

 

So when the scout performs community service for his church, the school regognizes it for what it was...24 hours of community service.

 

The scout might write down that same service for his troop to, because it doesn't say you can claim that service..it just says that you couldn't use that same amount of service for two different awards or achievements, ranks, etc...

 

Let's say for example that a boy scout is hanging out at a river, sees a kid fal in the river and starts drowning. He jumpos in, pulls the kid out and performs CPR. WEll, the local school may recognize him for it, so does that mean that the troop, BSA, local town council, ARC, and whoever else hands out awards for that kinda thing must turn around and ignore the kid? Does that mean as far as BSA is concerned..that scout did nothing at all?

 

How about scouting for food? If the scout does this as part of community service, then you don't keep track of the hours for GTFA?

 

Now, if the scout performs 12 hours of service this year, and tries to clain 12 hours for his next rank, then a couple to 5 months later tries to use that same 12 hours for his next rank...then yes, that is double dipping.

 

It seems to me people have confused what is double dipping. Think back to Webelos scouts. You cannot use an activity to earn your Outdoorsman pin, and then count that same activity for earning the World conservation Award. Because the WCA requires you to do an activity on it's own standing.

 

12 hours ( or however many you want to use here) is 12 hours. If 3 people know you have 12 hours, it doesn't mean they only see 4 hours each. Thay all know you worked 12 hours.

[acco40]

It is entirely up to the leaders involved (Scouting and school).

 

Can a Scout count the same camping trips for both OA membership, the camping merit badge and for rank advancement requirements? Of course they can.

 

Keep in mind that any service that is being requested for "credit" in Scouting should get the okay for that "credit" in advance by the Scoutmaster - not after the fact. When I was a Scoutmaster, I reviewed service time on an individual basis.

 

[Beavah]

I just don't think cookies are supposed to be the reward for community service. I think it's supposed to be respect and goodwill, and I have no problem whatsoever with kids earning respect and goodwill from multiple people for the same admirable behavior.

 

Yah, sure. If a lad saves a life, he's goin' to be recognized by multiple groups. That's a free-will, voluntary choice on da part of those groups. There is no expectation on the boy's part that he deserves recognition by way of prior agreement.

 

But that's not what we're talkin' about here. Whether it's for rank or NHS or confirmation class or what have yeh, there is an expectation of a "cookie" on da boy's part. In fact, there's a prior agreement on da expectations for the cookie.

 

Of course most of this gets back to our goals, eh? What do we all want da boys to learn? This is where I really think that anybody who is spendin' their time tallying up hours and fractions of hours and portions of requirements in some computer program is doin' Advancement all wrong. Advancement should be like a suntan, eh? It's somethin' yeh just get naturally from being outdoors and workin' hard.

 

We want lads to develop a lifetime habit of service, eh? Our paltry requirements and those of schools and honor societies all share that goal. Da point is to encourage service, not accounting. Service where yeh expect nothing, save your eventual reward in heaven. Alms where da right hand doesn't know what the left is doin'. Yeh can't get to that goal with creative accounting tricks to get da minimum hours logged. That teaches somethin' different.

 

It's just fine if a lad doesn't have enough time to offer service. Self-improvement and family time and labor for pay are all worthy things, too. But then the lad shouldn't expect awards, recognitions, or memberships in honor societies where there is an emphasis on service. And that's OK, eh? Some kids make Valedicorian and not Eagle Scout, and vice versa. But a lad who makes both Valedictorian and Eagle Scout should have met da individual requirements of each, without any need for creative accounting. Just as a matter of personal honor.

 

Da moment a lad thinks about double-countin', we've failed in our mission, eh? Because then he's focused on what he can get, not on what he can give.

 

Beavah(This message has been edited by Beavah)