I never heard of mandatory volunteering before, but oh gosh can I believe it. Of course it’s no longer considered volunteering, since the term itself would imply the free will and good intentions of the person doing the volunteering. I remember while my husband was still in the military, he would always tell me the was “volun-told” for a certain event or job. He was told to volunteer for something by one of his superiors whom he could not say no to. I guess that would be a similar example of how quickly volunteerism can go down the drain when it is expected of people to work for free. I also have to say that some volunteer positions have very strict requirements that resemble the prerequisites of actual positions for job applicants. I have applied in the fall to become a volunteer at a local hospital and each volunteer position required the completion of a full application including what skills relating to the position I had, why I wanted to volunteer, how I could benefit the hospital team/staff by volunteering and why I would be the right candidate for the position. Strong reminder of job applications, only I would work for FREE. Jeez, people, isn’t the will to do some good for free not enough? Do I have to get the third degree (I understand the background check and health assessment for obvious reasons, but I literally spent two days on filling out the application and writing essays to get the position).

It absolutely shouldn't. I'd also be interested in learning how they expect to enforce mandatory parental involvement. Do you just expel the kids of the parents who don't participate? If my kids went to school in that district, I might actually have quite a bit of fun messing with them.

Where I live, students are required to complete 40 hours of community service (volunteer work) in order to graduate. Fortunately, enforcement is almost non-existent. Things are forged constantly, and they don't even double check to see whether or not the place you volunteer with has non-profit status. At least one for-profit company hired these free volunteers so they could get their diplomas. They were never caught.

As for what forced parental involvement should be called, I have no idea. Parent detention?

If it's mandatory, then it's not volunteering. Period.

Parental involvement is not "volunteering". Parental involvement might be on a volunteer basis or a mandatory basis or something in between.

Requiring someone to volunteer at another organization is not volunteering. That's just work... and bad policy. How are you going to enforce it? How are you going to monitor it? What will you do if someone doesn't "volunteer"? Fire them?

Let's call it what it is... "Homework".