Led by co-sponsors Paige Illig and Jennifer Marden, National Honor Society is continuing to work with elementary and middle school students this year.
With Illig overseeing elementary tutoring and Marden covering middle school, NHS started working with Simpson Middle school for the first time on November 9, 2023. Tutoring Simpson students is starting for the first time this year. NHS has worked with the new principal at Simpson Dr. Tripp Di Nicola and other administrators to have students travel to Simpson for tutoring before or during school. Students are able to drive to Simpson during their study hall time to tutor. “One of the new things Dr. Luttrell has approved of students leaving campus during study hall to help out at Simpson, which is really a great thing,” Marden said. The middle school students can be tutored in reading or math, and also have teacher support.
Marden explained that the group received an email from Jarrod Dungan, an assistant principal at Simpson, asking if NHS would be interested in tutoring. From there, Dr. Di Nicola connected Marden with Kjersti Oliver, another assistant principal at Simpson. According to Marden, the tutoring efforts so far have been going well and NHS is excited to continue throughout the year.
“It seems like the students are enjoying it as well,” NHS President Gracelyn Daniel said.
NHS has tutored elementary schools in the past and they are continuing that this year with Evergreen Mill Elementary School. Elementary students come to the high school on Wednesday afternoons after our dismissal to be paired with high school tutors. “We try to make it the same tutor each time so that they have some familiarity with them. The high school students then tutor them on whatever they need help with,” Illig said. “Usually they come with specific work, sometimes it’s just that they’re really struggling in math so then they will run math problems with them or do spelling things with them. Sometimes it’s a really specific goal in mind, sometimes it’s just getting them that general help,” Illig said.
Tutoring for Evergreen has not yet started this year, since teachers are waiting for first semester testing, such as WETA, which determines which students may need help preparing for their SOLs. “We have to wait for those scores to come back before we can really get started, because there obviously are students who are of need early in the year, but it’s going to be such a significantly lower number, and the reality of them coming every single week when it’s so early is pretty unlikely,” Illig said.
Elementary school tutoring started on January 18th.
NHS provides many other services within the community. “At each meeting we will present a couple different volunteer opportunities that we think they should take advantage of for that month, and then throughout the month if we get more volunteer opportunities we’ll send it out to them,” Illig said.
“One of the biggest events that we are doing right now is the smile kits project where we are making these little kits for female cancer patients, we are tutoring, we do a lot of events here and there throughout the year as well,” Daniel said.
“NHS is a great organization, a great club and organization, and I would highly recommend that any sophomores thinking about doing it next year apply, and be part of our great society,” Marden said.
