Upper Division (9-12)

Download the Service Verification Form

Visit the Community Service Yellow Pages, a site created by seniors Max and Ernesto.

For STUDENTS: Enter your Service Learning Project information
in the SLP Database

Service Learning Events

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Service Learning

Service to the wider community is a key part of Brentwood life, and all students become actively involved in helping those in need.

The Upper Division Service Learning Program is designed to educate students about how our participation in and service to our community is integrally linked to their work in the classroom.  The goal is to blur the boundaries between the classroom and the community and to instill in our students a sense that their actions can positively affect the world around them. Service Learning reinforces our core values of civic responsibility and character development.

Goals of the Upper Division Program:

  • Students gain a greater understanding of their community and themselves as contributing, caring human beings.
  • Students develop a heightened awareness of and sensitivity to the needs of others within their community, and may develop a conviction to serve.
  • Students apply academic, social and personal skills to improve the community. They are involved in making decisions that have tangible results; the work is relevant.
  • Students develop leadership and team-building skills.

Basic Service Requirements:
Brentwood School no longer requires that a set number of community service hours be performed.  Instead, our program incorporates a meaningful service learning project at each grade level to ensure that all students participate each year.  It is, however, required that each student participate in the grade level projects.  In addition, many courses offer service projects as part of the curriculum.  It is up to the individual teacher to decide how to reward/acknowledge the service performed within the classroom.

Benefacta:
To encourage students to participate in service outside of the classroom, we have created an honor society to recognize their good deeds. And the word Benefacta is the Latin translation of “good deeds”.  Students generally accrue hours by working with a service agency after school hours or during the summer.  We have over ten Activities/Clubs this year that are devoted to service. All of these were started by students, and are organized by students with faculty acting as advisors. Learn more...

Direct vs. Indirect Service:
Direct service entails working with an entity that immediately benefits from the work you do.  Examples include providing services for low income families or cleaning a polluted river.  Indirect service includes advocacy and behind-the-scenes organization to provide services for an entity.  Brentwood School honors both direct and indirect service as they are both essential in repairing the world, and in furthering the school’s mission of embracing high standards of character and commitment. 

We recognize, however, that indirect service is not as powerful or engaging an experience as direct service.  Beginning in January, 2011 we will require that ten percent of all hours submitted for indirect service credit be comprised of direct service experience within the same agency.  This policy is consistent with our sister schools.

Service Learning Gallery

Spring Service Learning

It's been busy in the UD Service Learning office! This gallery includes photos from the service day with City Year, setting up cots and serving food at the Armory Winter Shelter, tree planting with Tree People, and our new after school program at the Salvation Army's Westwood Transitional Village for homeless families.

Contact Information

James Hughes
Service Learning Coordinator
and Upper Division English Chair
310.889.2663

Service Learning News

  • The Salvation Army Haven: An All-School Approach to Community Partnerships

    Monday, April 23: I’m standing near the door as a line of men and women eagerly shuffle into the common room of The Salvation Army’s “Haven” at the Veterans Affairs campus. The room is packed with rows of chairs, which they slip into rather demurely, a few jostling and joking with one another much like my students entering the classroom. Some, like Manny and Drew, recognize me and greet me heartily with a smile and a “Hey, how you doin’?” or “Good to see you!” They are assembling for a World Book Night event, which several Brentwood School parents and students have helped to organize to celebrate the opening of a new residential library for the veterans. At the front of the room, tables are brimming with an enticing array of desserts and artful displays of notable books—some donated by families, the school library, and even local bookstores—all freely made available to the veterans, along with complimentary, handmade book markers designed by Brentwood kindergarteners and other Lower Division students. Only an hour earlier, Upper Division students were amassed here, setting up the chairs and carting in the last of the donated books that now carefully line the tables and shelves of this inaugural library...

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  • Service Learning Opportunities

    Read more to see how you can get involved in the Upper Division Service Learning Program...

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  • Best Buddies at Brentwood

    On a recent visit to the James J. McBride Special Education Center, a group of Brentwood’s Best Buddies volunteers became acquainted with their new friends at the first meet and greet of the year. I was invited to tag along to see what it really means to be a volunteer, a buddy, and a friend. Accompanied by Upper Division Service Learning Coordinator James Hughes, and Elena Cardenas and Joon Kim, two of the Best Buddies advisors, the students arrived at McBride and began to partner up with their buddies in a covered area of the playground. There was no hesitation or fear or sense of uncertainty. There was only excitement, laughter, hugs, and immediate connections among the students. Click HERE to see our Best Buddies volunteers in action.

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