In recent years, there has been a rise in students interested in becoming outstanding in leadership, academics, service and character at SHS. As the amount of students interested in these areas increases, so does the amount of students applying for National Honor Society (NHS), a group that focuses on students who display these characteristics.

Now, with a rising number of students interested in NHS, there has been a change in the requirements to become a member.

According to math teacher Christina Ferguson, a sponsor for the SHS branch of NHS, there are currently 77 members in NHS compared to 56 last year. Many factors play into the increase of members, such as interest in one of the four areas of concern or students looking to receive scholarships. The areas of concern include academics, leadership, service and character. To be inducted in NHS, you have to meet certain requirements in each of these areas.

“I believe that there is a lot of increase in interest,” Ferguson said. “One thing we have done in the past couple of years is we’ve had a table at freshman orientation.”

Ferguson has confidence that their table at freshman orientation has helped educate more students on what NHS is and what NHS members do. She believes that it is important to educate freshmen about NHS because it may take an extended period of time throughout their high school career to meet the NHS requirements by their junior or senior year.

According to the guidance department, to be eligible to receive an application for NHS, you must have a GPA of 3.6 or above at the end of the first semester of junior or senior year. The student must also be involved in numerous community service and extracurricular activities, like sports or clubs.

The change made to the requirements of being eligible to join NHS is the higher GPA needed. In the past, it was a minimum of 3.4 to be considered to be inducted. On Jan. 12, 2017, it was revised and changed from 3.4 to 3.6. The revision was due to the increase in the number of students eligible to receive applications.

Senior and NHS member Zam Muan sees the change and growth in NHS to be beneficial as it helps motivate students with their school work and community service.

“For the future, (the GPA change) makes students do more and do better in school,” Muan said.

Although there has been a change in the requirements, Ferguson believes that the growth of NHS has a number of positives to it. Due to the number of members, there have been more requests from the community asking for help in different tasks. A lot of elementary schools in the township have been reaching out to NHS to be involved in different activities or service.

“The group that we have is a very deserving group,” said Ferguson. ”They are a great group of students to be representing SHS.”

Ferguson believes that SHS can continue to see a gradual increase in NHS members as the years go on.