School Could Mandate Service

A local public school committee considered a proposal yesterday that would require Cambridge Rindge and Latin School freshmen and sophomores to participate in an extracurricular or community service activity before graduating—a move that some committee members said might be outside of its bounds.

The committee held off on a vote of the matter after members raised concerns that the motion would deter possible candidates from applying to the high school’s principalship.

The high school, which is located a couple of blocks away from the Yard and enrolled 10 of its alumni in the College last fall, is searching for a new principal.

Committee member Joseph G. Grassi, who put the motion before the Cambridge Public Schools Committee, said that extracurricular involvement and academic success are linked.

“This is a way that we can better connect students with adults,” Grassi said. “Students that participate in extracurricular activities tend to do better in academics. That’s the intention of this policy.”

While the policy was lauded by some committee members, Thomas Fowler-Finn, the Cambridge Public Schools superintendent, urged the committee to hold off on a vote.

He said that if it passed this motion, the committee would be making an important change to the school’s curriculum without the principal’s consent.

“It is not a good thing for people who are interested in running the school to know that the school committee puts motions on the agenda to change requirements,” he said. “I think it’s not a good way to bring forward a major change in graduation requirements and a major change in the everyday lives of high school students.”

Other school committee members said that the proposal would encourage students to participate in extracurricular activities for the wrong reasons.

“I’m very concerned about making community service a requirement,” said committee member Luc Schuster. “It makes students not want to do these things.”

Fowler-Finn also noted that more time to mull over the proposal would aid the incoming principal’s transition.

“Give the [new] high school principal time to go through this and consider this,” he said. “There is going to be a delay but I think that the delay is important.”

The committee also discussed the issues of a system-wide technology upgrade and further nutritional improvements in the public schools.

—Staff writer Laura A. Moore can be reached at lamoore@fas.harvard.edu.