National Honor Society (NHS) is a club at LHS for the tutoring of students by their peers. However, in recent years the program hasn’t been tutoring as many students as it would like. President of NHS John Quinlan says, “I think NHS is a useful asset to the students at LHS. However, it is only as helpful as the students make it.” Hallie Gallo, the Vice President says, “we want to help even more kids with their studies and offer more tutoring opportunities to members.”
Why aren’t students getting tutored in the first place? Junior NHS member Natalie Antonucci says, “Students are able to access help in other ways like hiring professional tutors or going to a teacher’s offered extra help hours. Also, students may feel intimidated to ask people who are their peers to tutor them.” LHS Alum Nate Cieplik and NHS President of 2018-2019, brought up the fact that “people are more likely to just go to their friends than a student that’s more knowledgeable that they don’t know as well.” This seems to be the case with the large ICE (study) blocks, where many students will sit with their friends instead of using that time to seek out an NHS tutor.
NHS has taken some steps to increase the accessibility to students. Mr. Little says that “NHS members are excited to offer students tutoring at Storrs Library Monday through Thursday from 3 pm to 8 pm and Saturday from 9 am to 4 pm starting March 2nd.” Mr. Little says, “It is our hope that offering free tutoring in the evening and Saturday at the Storrs Library will become an attractive alternative for parents and students. This will allow students an opportunity to work with an experienced NHS tutor one on one in a quiet, private setting.” Natalie thinks that “it’s a great idea that NHS is proposing to work at Storrs Library because NHS [members] are not only able to reach out to high school students that need tutoring, but also to middle and elementary school students that may need help.” John holds a similar view, saying that “NHS members will have another opportunity to complete their community service hours obligation for the club and students of LHS and possibly the middle schools will have access to free tutoring services. I see it as a win win.”
This new program is by appointment only, and next year it will be open to elementary students as well. John says that his favorite thing about NHS is “being able to directly assist other students at LHS… [Our] goal is to create an environment at LHS where students are willing to help each other out with anything.”
