New year: new honor society requirements. The National Honor Society changed their bylaws to better fit their members’ complex schedules. With a two-thirds majority student vote, NHS has enacted a point system that went into effect at the start of the second semester, granting students more flexibility and choice in completing their volunteer hours.
NHS sponsor Megan Thompson collaborated with the junior and senior officers to create a system that would alleviate some problems members were facing. Many students expressed discontent with the old system, and there were many students going on probation or even dropping NHS because they could not fit the meetings and hours into their schedule.
“A lot of students with our old system couldn’t always make the group events,” vice president Suriyah Ali said. “It didn’t work in their schedule and [there] was only one opportunity a month.”
Students would contact Ali frequently because group events filled up too fast, requiring Ali and the board to create probation events in the middle of the semester so members would not get removed from NHS.
“This does a better job of hitting all of the pillars and not just one like service,” Thompson said. “I feel [before] like we were going hard on service and not having a lot of flexibility or hitting the other pillars.”
How to Earn Points:
Service:
As opposed to the usual one group event per month, NHS has listed over 10 event opportunities for students to get their service hours, including Spring Cleaning for Langford Park, a science fair and Taste of Oviedo. Additionally, places such as HOPE Helps and Advent Health/Nemours/Orlando Health volunteering are pre-approved since a vast amount of members rely on them for their hours.
Scholarship:
Students have two options to get the scholarship point: tutoring or attending monthly study halls.
“[The new system] encourages students to expand their horizons,” Thompson said. “We have a lot of very smart students who aren’t involved in school or feel like they’re a member of the community here. When you’re a leader, you have to be a part of the community as well.”
If students are interested in tutoring, they can fill out the Google Form on the NHS eCampus page to list what subjects they are comfortable tutoring in, as well as specific course levels (standard, honors or AP).
Members’ GPA and class grade will be considered for eligibility. All four quarters are required to tutor a class, and if members are currently taking the class, they must have all As up until that point. Students can also tutor for the SAT or ACT if they have a superscore above 1330 or 32.
The second option is to attend the monthly study halls held in Thompson’s or sponsor Dana Donovan-Bowers’s room from 2:30 to 3:30pm after school. This month’s study hall will take place on Jan. 23 in Thompson’s room (6-214). Students need to fill out the Google Form on eCampus to attend. Students should bring their homework to the sessions to earn the point and are limited to one study hall per semester to ensure equal opportunity for all members. This aligns with the scholarship pillar of NHS that emphasizes academic excellence and performance within its members.
Leadership:
Each NHS meeting a member attends is worth half a point. This allows students with busy schedules to work meetings around their other extracurriculars and responsibilities since they only need to attend two per semester. The Jan. 12 meeting counted for half a point, so all members should be halfway there. Additionally, students can earn more points by attending more than two meetings to reach the required total of ten points.
The meeting dates for the rest of the year are Feb. 9, Mar. 9 and Apr. 27.
Character:
Students have a variety of options to get the character point. Attending school events such as sports games, theater productions, choir concerts and band concerts counts as a point.
“Having options that suit you is definitely benefiting the students,” Ali said. “If sports events aren’t really your thing, you can go to a band concert or chorus concert.”
Members are required to take a photo of themselves wearing their NHS shirt at the event and submit it to eCampus for credit. Offering flexibility and variety, this pillar’s requirement allows members to get more involved in the school, which is exactly what NHS is intended for.
“Some [members] aren’t happy with the new system but I think part of that is just things being outside their comfort zone,” Thompson said. “It’s a lot for them to process and I hope in the end it will be better for them.”
