National Honor Society (NHS) will implement changes for the school year, including having a virtual induction ceremony, online meetings and altered and reduced service-hour requirements due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Honor Society is about promoting good citizenship, community service and good scholarship,” NHS sponsor Travis Zuber said. “If you’ve seen the large food lines and other issues that are going on, the need [in the community] is definitely still there. [NHS] is about filling these needs and helping students navigate the new virtual world so they can still help others in their community.” 

Perkins and Zuber said service-level activities will be activities students can safely do, such as donating items to food pantries or making appreciation cards for different people in the community. Perkins said because of the limited number of activities students can do because of COVID-19, the amount of service hours required will be reduced to 15.

“One of the hardest parts is finding things that students can do from their home,” NHS sponsor Nicole Perkins said. “Luckily the [National Association of Secondary School Principals], the NHS parent organization, has partnered with dosomething.org, which provided lots of digital opportunities for students. Unlike last year, it’s going to be more on the students to go out and find opportunities.” 

Perkins said in addition to meetings being pre-recorded and posted on Edpuzzle, the induction ceremony will also be held virtually. She said the induction ceremony has been difficult to put together because they have to find a way to include each student saying the oath in addition to presenting the organization’s ideals.

“Meetings will be pre-recorded,” Perkins said. “We’ll be using Edpuzzle because there are places for students to ask questions, and we can keep track of and ensure students watch the full video. In normal years during NHS meetings, you could go up to officers and check in, which allowed us to keep a record of who attends. Edpuzzle allows us to similarly keep a record of which students attend the meetings.”

Perkins and Zuber said officer elections are still being finalized, but they will begin shortly in the coming weeks.

“Instead of holding in-person meetings where officers give their speeches and then people fill out paper ballots, like in past years, we’re going to switch online,” Perkins said. “Online speeches will be submitted by candidates, which will be posted on Canvas. All other information, including voting, will be posted on Canvas.”