CAS Hours

[MLIIB2012]

Hi,

I am sure all of us stuggle with the CAS hours and our school requires us to do an international service project. We have been doing things like Operation Smile dinners and such. However currently with the budget cuts, there is little to no funding available for IB anymore in my school. How do you all manage with the money that has to go into the service projects? Does everyone always dig in their pockets and donate money? Does anyone have any ideas? It is difficult for our school to do fundraisers just for IB because we are constantly battling with AP. The AP group will always bring up that we are becoming "an elite" group and therefore many ideas do not pass.

Thanks

[Guest Pingg]

Hi,

I am sure all of us stuggle with the CAS hours and our school requires us to do an international service project. We have been doing things like Operation Smile dinners and such. However currently with the budget cuts, there is little to no funding available for IB anymore in my school. How do you all manage with the money that has to go into the service projects? Does everyone always dig in their pockets and donate money? Does anyone have any ideas? It is difficult for our school to do fundraisers just for IB because we are constantly battling with AP. The AP group will always bring up that we are becoming "an elite" group and therefore many ideas do not pass.

Thanks

Wow, that's intense that your school makes you do international service projects. My school does not require that, therefore I have never had to come up with ways of getting money for service projects. I complete a lot of my service projects by tutoring a trio at my old middle school and having benefit concerts with my local youth symphony.

I wish I could give you some helpful advice. Good luck!

[JoeG]

My school enforces 1 international service hour. I helped out with Operation Smiles lol

My school also suffers from elitism with IB.

My school resolves this by allowing anyone to take part in extracurricular events, unless it's a special one like Band, Chorus, Beta Club, or NHS. Even then, if those clubs are sponsoring events, everyone's allowed to go.

For example, even though I never joined NHS (lol, I'm lazy) the school and the club knew that IB and non-IB students needed International Service hours, whether they were in NHS in or not. So they set up an Operation Smiles volunteer opportunity for everyone.

My advice for dealing with the AP group is that both groups need volunteer service hours. Tell them that a service hour is a service hour, and they need to get over themselves. Just because you are REQUIRED to have an international service hour, and your seeking to complete it doesn't mean your elitist lol. The money is there, and it wouldn't make a difference financially if you were to do an international service hour over one favoring the U.S. or a more local region.

If the problem gets worse, or does not resolve itself, talk to your IBC and your Principle saying that the AP sector won't negotiate.

Also, if funding itself is a problem, I would say to do something smaller for an international service hour. A great way would to do a "Spare Change drive" also known as a "Penny Drive." Have various teachers (with school approval) have bins/pots/whatever for people to put their spare change into. With at least half of the teachers in the school doing this for a month or so, it should raise a fair deal of money.

Then, you can donate this money to a chariatble organization. I would recommend Heifer International. It's an organization that donates farm animals to poor peoples and villages. It's actually not that expensive lol. I know that when I was a Freshman, the Senior IB class did this so everyone involved could get their international hour.

P.S. Also, make sure you heavily advertise this in your school. Just print out (normal printer paper is good) fliers saying what to do. If you school does morning/afternoon announcements, put in a request that the announcer give information on this event.

Lol, my school does help out to some degree with $$$. But some financial responsibility is placed upon the groups that are making the event. As class treasuruer last year, we were funded partially by the school, but we had to make up alot of funds for events with ticket sales, food sales, etc.

Edited March 11, 2011 by JoeGuff

[toytoytoy]

Can I just ask randomly..how many CAS projects do we get? because I do alot of things that are both service and creativity ahha

[MLIIB2012]

My school enforces 1 international service hour. I helped out with Operation Smiles lol

My school also suffers from elitism with IB.

My school resolves this by allowing anyone to take part in extracurricular events, unless it's a special one like Band, Chorus, Beta Club, or NHS. Even then, if those clubs are sponsoring events, everyone's allowed to go.

For example, even though I never joined NHS (lol, I'm lazy) the school and the club knew that IB and non-IB students needed International Service hours, whether they were in NHS in or not. So they set up an Operation Smiles volunteer opportunity for everyone.

My advice for dealing with the AP group is that both groups need volunteer service hours. Tell them that a service hour is a service hour, and they need to get over themselves. Just because you are REQUIRED to have an international service hour, and your seeking to complete it doesn't mean your elitist lol. The money is there, and it wouldn't make a difference financially if you were to do an international service hour over one favoring the U.S. or a more local region.

If the problem gets worse, or does not resolve itself, talk to your IBC and your Principle saying that the AP sector won't negotiate.

Also, if funding itself is a problem, I would say to do something smaller for an international service hour. A great way would to do a "Spare Change drive" also known as a "Penny Drive." Have various teachers (with school approval) have bins/pots/whatever for people to put their spare change into. With at least half of the teachers in the school doing this for a month or so, it should raise a fair deal of money.

Then, you can donate this money to a chariatble organization. I would recommend Heifer International. It's an organization that donates farm animals to poor peoples and villages. It's actually not that expensive lol. I know that when I was a Freshman, the Senior IB class did this so everyone involved could get their international hour.

P.S. Also, make sure you heavily advertise this in your school. Just print out (normal printer paper is good) fliers saying what to do. If you school does morning/afternoon announcements, put in a request that the announcer give information on this event.

Lol, my school does help out to some degree with $$$. But some financial responsibility is placed upon the groups that are making the event. As class treasuruer last year, we were funded partially by the school, but we had to make up alot of funds for events with ticket sales, food sales, etc.

The spare change drive is a good idea. I have never heard of Heifer International but it seems interesting. What other projects have you done at your school?