President’s Volunteer Service Award (PVSA)

Compass students will receive a discount code which gives them membership in Volunteer Scholars at no cost. Compass will pay for all costs associated with the award.

A Compass students is defined as a one who was enrolled in at least one Compass class in the previous school year and at least Quarter 1 or Semester 1 of the upcoming school year, as measured by the August 31 cut-off for the PVSA award year.

Homeschooled students in northern Virginia (Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Arlington, Stafford, and Faquier counties, or Alexandria, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park citities) who do not attend Compass may still earn the PVSA award through Compass.

Compass will pay for all costs associated with the award, but all non-Compass homeschooled students must pay a $25.00 Compass activity fee. Once signed-up with activity fee paid, these students will receive a discount code which gives them membership in Volunteer Scholars at no additional cost.

PVSA candidates certified by Compass must be homeschooled students for the award year that the volunteer work was performed (September 1 through August 31) and at least the term when the award is presented (late October). All candidates will be asked to submit their county’s homeschool acknowledgement letter (not NOI) demonstrating homeschool status for both years.

If a student was homeschooled and performed community service during the award year, but then enrolls in school, he/she is not eligible to received the award through Compass and should ask his/her new school to serve as the certifying agency or purchase a membership in Volunteer Scholars.

Students from any other educational setting (public, private, parochial, virtual, hybrid, community college, etc) or homeschooled students from any area outside of northern Virginia cannot earn this award through Compass, but may instead earn it through Volunteer Scholars.

Homeschooled students ages 6 through 18 can earn this award. A student must be age 6 by August 31 (in other words, the student may have completed some activities while 5 years old, but must turn 6 by the end of the award cycle). A student cannot turn 19 before March 1 of the award year (in other words, the student was 18 for at least 6 months and 1 day, or “more than half”, of the award year.)

Adults ages 18+ may earn this award through Volunteer Scholars .

Volunteers must be US citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of the US to earn the PVSA award.

An awards ceremony will be held at 4:00 pm on the fourth Wednesday afternoon in October each year for the recipients of the prior year’s awards. Attendance at the award ceremony is mandatory for Compass students and northern Virginia area homeschooled students. Attendance shall be a condition of receiving your award. Check the date and plan for it in your schedule if you are applying for an award. Awards will not be given to students who do not show up for the ceremony regardless of reason.

Eligible Compass students or northern Virginia homeschooled students who wish to earn the PVSA award must first sign up through Compass to receive a one-time discount code to join Volunteer Scholars, a Compass affiliate program where volunteers will track their hours through on online portal. This will let us know who is working on the awards when we send out important announcements and reminders. Compass and non-Compass homeschooled students should sign up on the Compass Activities Fees webpage.