EPISD Seniors Don’t Have To Do Required Community Service Hours

The El Paso Independent School District was under state control four years ago in light of the cheating scandal that landed its superintendent in prison. During that time, the state-controlled school board put a requirement in place that in order to participate in graduation ceremonies, students would have to complete 120 hours of community service. The first class that would have to fulfill that requirement is the Class of 2018. Students and parents have known for four years that they would have to do the hours, but a check by EPISD officials revealed that only 11% have done community service hours.

At their regular meeting on Tuesday, they decided to scrap the requirement. What a shocker.

Gustavo Reveles, EPISD's spokesperson, actually said, “It was determined that while we know students are doing the community service, they have not logged into our system to log the hours. There were many, many students in danger of missing out on graduation ceremonies, which we didn't think was a feasible route to take."

There are other school districts that require students to do community service, and those students manage to log into the system and follow the rules. EPISD is effectively punishing the students who followed the rules instead of punishing the students who didn't.

Way to go EPISD. You just told the overwhelming majority of your students that not doing what they are supposed to do is perfectly ok with the district.