As of May 6, North’s Business Honor Society has transitioned to include all Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses, which include both engineering and business. The formerly business-based honor society is widening its doors for applications until May 8, with an induction in the fall of next year. The new group will meet in room 400 on the first Thursday of every month during the school year. Mike Horn, a teacher who primarily teaches CTE courses, helped facilitate this change, along with Rebecca LaPorta, assistant principal of Student Life.
“For years, we’ve had the Business National Honor Society, but that was limited to just students who took business courses here at North, along with some technology courses. We now have transitioned over to the National Technical Honor Society, which includes all of CTE, which is career and technical education. So that would be business engineering, facts, trades, health occupations,” said Horn.
In past years, the honor society was small, with around 15 students. This further motivated Horn to petition for the change, with the hope of getting more students involved.
“The goal was to switch to this club so we can include more students, and have an opportunity for those students that might not be in the other traditional honor societies to be able to come over,” said Horn.
But this switch was not instantaneous. In fact, he has been working on this project with LaPorta for years, as well as other educators who have a similar program in their school. Additional research was also undertaken in order to provide evidence for the switch to the school, with a focus on finding material and resources for the club.
“I’ve been working on [prepping for the switch] for a few years, and it just took a little bit of background work and convincing with the administration to make the switch. So this year, Mrs. Laporta in our Student Life office, she was very receptive to the idea that we would get more students involved,” said Horn. “I worked with a friend from Geneva High School that I also do DECA with in that club, and she has this program at their high school, and that kind of turned me on to it. Once I researched it, we saw it was a much better fit for our students, and they offer a lot more programs as well for our students.”
Because of this switch, numerous changes will be at play in who they can accept and the structure of North’s National Tech Honor Society (NTHS). They are now able to accept incoming sophomores, juniors and seniors, rather than only upperclassmen. Additionally, this change offers a certain amount of flexibility. Students can mix and match different courses, such as an engineering course and a marketing class, and still have the ability to qualify.
“Now we’re not focused on one topic only, and that students will get access to a couple different types of careers, and it might change their trajectory of what they want to study in college or what they want to do in high school. So it offers them the opportunity to explore different things,” said Horn.
Otherwise, things in NTHS are staying the same as they were before, with added benefits like up to $300,000 in scholarships that students can apply for.
“We are gonna try to keep the same schedule, which is the first Thursday of every month, and we meet in room 400,” said Horn. “Our plan is to kind of change things up next year, have a lot of variety in guest speakers and activities that the students can do.”
Ultimately, this transition is all about two things: growing the club and getting more kids involved.
“The biggest thing is growing the club and allowing more students access, because business, as an honor society, was probably floating around 15 students per year. It’s kind of a small club because it was only junior[s], seniors, [students with a] certain GPA, certain number of hours, and then [we were] very limited on the number of kids that met that requirement,” said Horn. “I think by opening the program bigger, we’re going to catch more kids to be able to come in and be part of it.”
