As the school year enters the home stretch, just over a third of Windham High School seniors have completed the community service requirement instituted this year as a precursor to graduation.

That is worrying school board members, who don’t want to face an onslaught of requests for leniency at the end of the year.

According to community service coordinator Diane Leavitt, 36 percent of seniors have completed the 10 hours of community service required to graduate. Another 29 percent have logged at least one hour helping out at a school function, serving dinner at a soup kitchen, or doing any of the many other activities that count as community service. The remaining 35 percent have yet to report any community service at all.

The community service policy, approved at the end of the last school year, mandates that members of this year’s senior class complete 10 hours of community service, defined loosely as helping someone else in need. It could be picking up trash, working at a school fundraiser or pitching in at the food pantry.

Next year’s seniors will have to complete 20 hours of service, with each subsequent class required to complete 10 more hours a year until it caps at 40 hours a year starting with this year’s freshmen class, the class of 2012.

Though this policy was created by the Windham School Department, the newly formed Windham-Raymond School Board discussed the issue briefly at its March 11 meeting. The numbers were shockingly low, said member Marge Govoni of Windham, and board members from each town should be aware that the issue may have to be addressed before graduation.

Leavitt lists procrastination as one reason for the low numbers so far, though she said some students have actually done community work but have not filled out the proper paperwork. She also said that many students are not participating because they dislike having the service forced upon them.

“Some kids, it is going to take that last day to say, ‘You are not going to be able to graduate. Period,” said Leavitt, who oversees a program that allows people to post service opportunities for students.

Student Scott Gartsu, a junior who said he has done around 14 hours of service so far, said a lot of students feel like the community service requirement is heavy-handed, and that their time would be better spent on other activities.

“They say, ‘Why do we have to do this? Let’s just focus on school,’ ” he said.

Students who have not completed the requirement yet will have plenty of opportunities to do so, said Leavitt. A board and Web site maintained by the students in her program list activities that count as community service, and this week listed 20 groups looking for help, including Manchester School, Windham Boosters and the Drifters Snowmobile Club. Students also said they volunteered at Homecoming or the Winter Carnival, or worked at the concession stand and school store, to accumulate hours.

The list is very accessible, Leavitt said, and the opportunities are announced over the school loudspeaker.

“The word is out about all this,” she said.

If students miss all that, they can take part in a May cleanup project being organized by class advisers Trish Soucy and Tianna Morrison. The plan is to provide students with trash bags, gloves and adult supervisors, then give them a specific area to clean. Between the cleanup day and a walk-a-thon around the same time that will need volunteers, students will not have an excuse.

“They will at least have a last-minute chance,” said Leavitt.

Some students complain that they do not have transportation, making it difficult to get to certain assignments, said Tyrell Brown, a junior. Brown does not have a license, so he looked for opportunities around school. There are projects at all times, and in a lot of different places, Brown said. Finding good opportunities should not be a problem, he said.

“If they say it is, they are not even trying,” he said.