Community Engagement

Philosophy

At Holton, you’ll come to truly know your SELF so that you can best contribute to your COMMUNITY and make a vital impact on the WORLD.

We encourage students to use critical thinking skills to creatively solve problems. We cultivate curiosity, examine injustices, and leverage students' knowledge so that they can actively engage in their communities with empathy, courage, and shared responsibility. By applying classroom knowledge and content to meet authentic community needs, our students become knowledgeable, willing, and eager participants in our social fabric. We ask students to collaborate with communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

Using this definition of community engagement the school has set the following program objectives:

Creative and Critical Thinking

Students can formulate questions to seek a clear understanding of a problem.
Students apply problem-solving processes to develop solutions to simple and complex problems.
Students build on others’ ideas and add new ideas of their own to innovate or solve problems.

Local, National, and Global Engagement

Students research local, national, or global topics, issues, or events to generate significant questions.
Students examine multiple conditions and forces that affect local, national, and global topics, issues, and events.
Students can explain local, national, and global governmental processes.
Students reflect upon how they participate in local, national, and global systems.

Social Justice

Students recognize that power and privilege influence relationships and consider how they have been affected by those dynamics.
Students demonstrate humility, integrity, and a sense of shared responsibility regarding social justice.
Students examine the impact of their actions and promote equity, justice, sustainability, and peace.
Students account for the impact they have on creating an environmentally sustainable future.

Student Leadership

One of the most important aspects of the Community Engagement Program is that our students lead the way. To that end, Student Community Engagement Committees exist in each division, and are responsible for assisting with a wide range of community engagement opportunities that occur throughout the year. These efforts include planning and implementing projects that address local issues, supporting community-based organizations’ efforts to promote equity and sustainability, and promoting a sense of shared responsibility both within the Holton community and beyond.

In the Upper School student leadership opportunities also include elected grade-level representatives responsible for sharing information at class meetings, bringing awareness to important community needs, and leading grade-level projects and club participation.

Upper School Graduation Requirement

Upper School Graduation Requirement

Class of 2025 and beyond

All Upper School students are required to complete 50 hours of community engagement for graduation. The total number of hours must be completed before entering Senior year. Please note, you may do more if you choose to, but you will still be expected to complete the required hours per year.

At least 40 hours of these hours must be completed at the same location, this is called “The 40-Hour Project.” This project must address a specific community need. A "need" is the gap between what is and what should be. This can be felt by an individual, a group or an entire community.

9th grade: 10 hours
10th grade: 20 hours (start the first 20 hours of The 40 Hour Project)
11th grade: 20 hours (complete the last 20 hours of The 40 Hour Project)

All community engagement hours must be direct engagement. Direct engagement is defined as students' interaction with the recipients of the project or the physical environment they have targeted for improvement. This differs from indirect engagement, channeling resources to a need. For example, serving the homeless at a soup kitchen (direct) versus holding a canned food drive for a local food pantry (indirect). Therefore, drives, fundraisers, 5k’s, etc. will not count towards the graduation requirement.