As many know, National Honor Society (NHS) is something Berkley High School offers to students who have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 weighted (3.4 unweighted), run by representatives Ms. Farr and Mrs. Belsky. In your sophomore year you apply for NHS and get inducted, by your junior year and senior years you can be in NHS. There are multiple positions offered in NHS. You can be a general member, a committee leader, and even an officer. Below is a more in-depth description of the various positions.
Representatives Ms. Farr and Mrs. Belsky
When asked about what representatives do for the club, Ms. Farr explained, “Ms. Belsky and I help oversee Berkley’s chapter of National Honor Society – we help officers plan for meetings, post volunteer opportunities, and verify hours. We also monitor our members to make sure they are meeting the requirements of membership, organize the application and approval process for new members, and help run our yearly induction ceremony.” Both of these staff members are mainly in charge of planning induction, but they also have some other profuse tasks, “although, we do set the schedule of meetings and answer numerous emails from community members and parents who are looking for help or tutors.”Since their main job is planning induction, which is on April 30th, 2025, that is their main focus alongside the other tasks. Ms. Farr continued, “Planning starts with the election of next year’s officers. Then we have multiple meetings to finalize speeches, the order of the program, and the program itself. Last year we collected information from all of our seniors and new members in order to create a slideshow of each member. It took a while to create but it turned out pretty nice!” NHS also has committees which include people grouped together to help the community in numerous ways. Ms. Farr goes a little more in depth saying, “Committees are always created based on what current members request from us. Last year we started offering a lot of babysitting events for teachers’ kids and so it became necessary to create a babysitting committee. There were also requests to create an art committee and a performing arts committee so we’re giving it a try. Near the end of the school year we typically will assess if a committee was successful and if it should continue.” Now, as said above, members need to have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 weighted (3.4 unweighted). “This is needed to be eligible for membership and needs to be maintained to keep membership once a student is inducted,” adds Mrs. Farr, “NHS is a great way to give back to your community – it is so much more about service than about grades.”
Officers
This year’s NHS President is Violet Karp, the Vice President is Emily Castone, Treasurer is Samuel George, and Secretary is Shoshana Loomer. These various positions are the officer positions. George gave us some insight on how to run for officer positions, “We have a large meeting at the end of March or April and you’re given a certain amount of time to run for the campaign. Then on a certain day, everyone meets in the auditorium, and they display all the videos and campaigns. There’s a voting process after that and it’s decided usually about 15 minutes after.” Another priority of the president, along with running meetings and being the primary contact for organization, is being in charge of uploading opportunity events to Innerview. Something that is very big in NHS is the app Innerview, which many new members may not know about. George carries on saying, “The purpose of Innerview is to track your hours, it’s built around service because that is the whole purpose of NHS. Being able to log hours and show them, it’s easier for the treasurer to verify them, and also show the volunteer work they did.” Being in a high position includes extra work and additional meetings. George describes, “At the extra meetings, called the executive officer meetings (both the advisors and all 4 of the officers) the president has a lot of other work that our advisors will assign us. We work with various committees and there’s also miscellaneous things that we might bring up if we want to start a new initiative or work on committee projects.”
Committee Leader
There are many committees that members can be a part of in NHS, but when Senior Jessie Burns, who is in the Angell Elementary school committee leader, was asked to expand on her BHS committee she started off by saying, “To be a committee leader, you have to fill out a google form and make it clear you are interested in being a committee leader. It’s a little different from the members of the committee because I work to create committee projects (1 per semester). With these projects, I communicate with the other members, providing instructions and reminders.” Each semester, these committees create projects to help out the community. For example, this committee sent out pen pals to 5th graders at Angell Elementary. Burns continues, “When thinking of committee events, I have used a lot of past ideas and discussed with members at meetings to hear of any additions or ways others think we could do things. And the reason I chose the Angell committee is because I went to Angell and enjoy having a tie to where my Berkley education started. Overall, NHS is a nice way to give back to the community and meet new people.”
NHS Member
Lastly we can get insight from a NHS member, Junior Laila Miller. “I am a part of NHS because throughout my freshman and sophomore year I was able to maintain my GPA and get recommendations from my teachers to become a part of the club. I also had to write an essay reflecting my ideas about NHS to be accepted in.” While the thought of being a part of NHS can seem stressful and time consuming, it really isn’t as overwhelming as it may seem. Miller mentions the commitment NHS requires, “I would say that NHS is a commitment because you have to maintain your GPA and complete your 13.5 hours of volunteering for each semester to stay on top of it, but otherwise, attending the monthly meetings and being aware of what your committee is working on is pretty easy to keep up with. This year my goal was to become a committee leader and I was able to do that.” Being able to maintain being a part of NHS and completing goals is something that can be achievable. Similar to Burns, Miller said, “I think NHS is a great club because it gives us the opportunity to connect with and help others in our community. Whether it is volunteering or hosting activities for the elementary schools, It feels like we are making an impact on the community.”
As mentioned, NHS has lots of volunteer opportunities as the idea is to serve our community through acts of service. Innerview is the app that provides multiple of these opportunities to help the community including tutoring, childcare, volunteering for flu/covid clinic, concessions, helping teachers, and many others. To show off your success, NHS students are given a cord to wear during graduation. Overall, NHS is a great way to show leadership by giving students the competitive opportunity to run against others for different positions. And it also exposes students to a different type of responsibility they have to take on while helping the Berkley Community.
