WINDHAM – Windham High School administration and school board members are preparing to jettison the six-year-old community service requirement for graduating students.

In its place, school officials are planning to institute a “capstone project,” which emphasizes focused research complemented by adult mentorship.

The school board instituted the community service policy in 2008. It requires that students complete 40 hours of uncompensated service before graduation, in order to “acclimate students to a regular routine in their life of serving others,” according to the policy statement.

But on Nov. 19, the board gave Principal Chris Howell the green light to replace the community service requirement with a capstone project requirement.

“He got the nod from the board,” said Regional School Unit 14 director Kate Brix. “There are a lot of details to be hammered out, which is why we’ve asked him to come back in February, and then the hope is roll it out for next year’s freshmen.”

Current high school students will not be affected, and the community service requirement will remain in place for them.

The capstone project requirement is likely to be approved as part of a broader overhaul of the school’s graduation policy in the spring. The school is transitioning the policy in order to comply with new state standards relating to proficiency-based diplomas.

According to Howell, the capstone project policy means that, in order to graduate, each student “will demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and work habits by conducting in-depth research, using technological applications, producing a high-quality exhibition of learning, and presenting their research and findings to a review panel.”

Examples include month-long community service projects, lengthy research projects, papers, internships, and projects where students pursue a life-long interest, Howell said.

“Let’s say we had a student who always wanted to learn to become a firefighter,” he said. “As part of their project they could select as a mentor in the community somebody who is currently a firefighter, and they could go through the process of getting certified.”

More specifically, Howell is looking to the private Berwick Academy, located in South Berwick, as a model. The academy requires students to investigate a subject they are passionate about, choose a mentor to assist in the investigation, maintain a “web presence” for the project, reach out to the community in the process, and then present the results to a juried panel.

“If somebody’s really jazzed up about genetics, they could do an in-depth study with mentor help, pursuing that interest, perhaps volunteering in a lab, exploring ideas that are of interest to them,” said Brix.

According to Superintendent Sandy Prince, the capstone requirement would “provide a mechanism for meaningful community service.”

Brix also characterized the capstone as more substantive than the community service requirement.

“By using a capstone project it can be more educationally based,” she said. “I think this might be a better solution to getting more meaningful experiences.”

According to Brix, school officials exercise little to no oversight of the community-service program. Howell said he did not know off the top of his head what organizations students volunteer for, although he had a general notion of the type of activities involved.

“Kids do everything from babysitting to working community events to, in some cases, cleaning around the school to complete their community service hours,” he said. “We’ll have students who will also volunteer for local youth groups or community organizations.”

Colette Gagnon, social services administrative assistant at the Windham Food Pantry, said she is not concerned about the shift. That’s because many of the Windham High School students who have volunteered at the pantry as part of their community-service requirements have not been particularly reliable, Gagnon said.

“There was a group that was supposed to come, and they always came on the wrong day,” Gagnon said. “I can get one kid every once in a while that really wants to do it – but not groups. They weren’t dependable.”

Claire Woodman, an adviser to the Windham High School Interact Club, a group affiliated with the Sebago Lake Rotary Club that enlists about 30 students a year in a diverse array of volunteer activities, said the switch to a more focused capstone project could have an impact on students who participate in order to comply with the 40-hour requirement.

“I think there is a certain percentage of students that join simply because it is a requirement, but there are certainly a larger number of students that join because they’re interested in what the club has to offer,” she said.

Howell said he was not concerned about a decline in student volunteerism.

“I think the kids who volunteer for youth soccer will continue to volunteer for youth soccer,” he said. “They’re also doing it because they’re building resumes for college transcripts.”

If students fail to do competent work on their capstone projects, they will not graduate, Howell said. But, according to Howell, it is not yet clear how capstone projects will be assessed. The point is that the projects will go far beyond the purely quantitative standard embodied in the community service requirement.

“My focus that I would like to see is the quality of the work,” Howell said. “I would much rather see a student who learns a new skill or pursues an area of interest that’s high quality, than a student who just goes through the motions to check off the requirement.”