Ideas to strengthen service-learning and youth engagement at the local level (school district / city / county):

(These asks would be made to Superintendents, school board members, mayors, city council members, and/or county commissioners.)

• Establish a school district service-learning vision, philosophy, and mission statements.
• Develop a district policy framework for defining and supporting service-learning.
• Create a budgetary and organizational infrastructure for service-learning.
• Establish a district–wide service-learning coordinator position.
• Build and sustain school-community partnerships.
• Make service-learning an integral component in hiring new teachers, and use professional development funds to support service-learning training for new and current teachers.
• Recognize and/or promote teachers, administrators, and school board members who lead outstanding service-learning activities.
• Allow deviations to traditional scheduling to support service-learning (e.g., block scheduling to allow sufficient time for activities, as well as planning time for teachers).
• Recognize student’s civic accomplishments by rewarding students with civic transcripts that highlight their service-learning projects and extracurricular community service activities.
• Institute a service-learning graduation requirement.
• Form a youth advisory council.

Ideas to strengthen service-learning and youth engagement at the state level:

(These asks would be made to state legislators, state department & commission heads, and members of the executive branch - Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, etc.)

• Support or require school districts to have a district–wide service-learning coordinator position.
• Establish a service-learning board or committee.
• Create a long-term plan for service-learning.
• States should leverage private funding by matching their current budget of service-learning to other private organizations aimed at contributing to service-learning projects.
• Creating a Youth Innovation Fund- where some of the money states raise for service-learning could be dedicated to a Youth Innovation Fund that would provide start-up capital for service projects proposed by students themselves in order to empower, and motive students to take action on issues they care about.
• States can encourage teachers to use service-learning by offering professional development classes for teachers in how to use service-learning effectively in their classrooms.
• States should collect data on service-learning programs and use it to evaluate the effectiveness that service-learning has on education.
• States should build and sustain partnerships with organizations or groups that are committed to service-learning.

Ideas to strengthen service-learning and youth engagement at the federal level:

(These asks would be made to Members of Congress (Representatives and Senators), leaders of federal departments and agencies, and members of the Administration, including the President, Vice President, and members of the Cabinet.)

• Grow AmeriCorps’ membership to 250,000 by 2013
• Expand Learn and Serve America to engage 4.5 million students by 2013
• Create a federal Semester of Service program.
• Send a U.S. Youth Delegate to the United Nations
• Make a Summer of Service a rite of passage
• Create a Global Service Fellowship Program
• Double the Peace Corps to its 1966 high of 16,000 members by its 50th anniversary in 2011
• Strengthen “Serve-Study” for college students.
• Found the U.S. Public Service Academy
• Renew and fund the Federal Youth Coordination Act.
• Increase research on how and why service-learning is related to graduation rates, and also the role service-learning has in elementary and secondary completion.
  
• Lead a national discussion among state and local policymakers on the importance and value that service-learning has on a student’s academic education.