I had to do community service for my high school in the late 80's. Granted it was a private high school, so it's by no means a perfect analogy to today's public school students, but I don't see why this is such a big deal assuming that the student has a choice of where they want to volunteer.
I think that a couple of years I worked at some road races handing out water (and once running the official clock) and another year I cut the grass for the neighborhood park (which was neighborhood property and not the city's). I assume that today's students have the same freedom to choose their own causes to work for subject to faculty approval. That means that dk's kids could go spend a couple of weekends gathering up spent brass at the local non-profit gun range, teaching gun safety, putting a new coat of paint on their church, pulling weeds at the local cemetary or whatever. If there's a very limited list of causes to work for, then I have a problem with that, but if the student is given the freedom to choose, this seems much more like a tempest in a teapot than anything else.
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