When residents start getting phone calls from the campaign teams of President Barack Obama and his presumed opponent Mitt Romney — if they haven’t already — they might find themselves talking to a Suffolk high school student who is earning the right to graduate.

That’s because when school resumes after summer, Suffolk Public Schools could have in place new graduation rules requiring high school students to complete 50 hours of community service to graduate.

According to Phyllis Sharpe, a district administrator, working on a phone bank for a political candidate is one way students could clock up their hours; selling Girl Scout cookies is another, and there are countless more.

The district, she says, has been in talks with community organizations operating in Suffolk on how the idea could work, talks she says will continue over the summer.

The public school learning experience has traditionally been about reading, writing and arithmetic, with some geography, history, science, art and whatever else thrown in.

This is largely geared toward creating tomorrow’s workforce, with national economic outcomes in mind.

But one often hears of the need for students to be taught civic skills along with those they will need to earn a living and contribute to the Gross Domestic Product. Parents sometimes drop the ball in this regard.

Civic skills help students contribute to society in other ways that are arguably just as important.

These students will vote for tomorrow’s political leaders, or themselves become those leaders. They will determine how society 20 years from now will care for those who, for whatever reason, can’t or don’t look after themselves.

Whether future graduates of Suffolk’s public school system are content to glean from life what they can, or whether they take it upon themselves to give a little back as well, will be influenced in part by the district’s new graduation policy.

The policy was unanimously approved by school board members last week, with little commentary or debate. Most of the talk was about the district budget, which also was approved.

If the new graduation guidelines are now approved by the Virginia Department of Education board, according to a 2011 presentation to that board, Suffolk will become only the state’s third school division to successfully implement such a policy.

Suffolk Councilman Mike Duman should take particular interest in the move; at a forum on improving graduation rates at King’s Fork High School last month, he suggested pairing dropout-risk youths with local businesses for mentorship and work experience.

Requiring 50 hours of community service is a similar concept, and Suffolk Public Schools should be commended for considering it.