Student Programs

NASC Raising Student Voice and Participation
Encouraging student engagement and empowering students to become actively involved in their communities directly impacts numerous key learning and achievement areas. Active learning programs can help bring social studies and civics curricula to life, and can help develop communication and leadership skills. They can also support school reform efforts by engaging students in the school community and making them allies for change. NASSP and NASC developed the Raising Student Voice and Participation (RSVP) program to provide principals and student councils with tools to empower and engage students in student-led summits. Nearly 47,000 students have participated in RSVP programs since 2006. This exceptional program is proven to impact student involvement, civic action, community service, and leadership skills, and to assist school leaders in improving their school communities.

The RSVP program generates structured conversation and action around current issues facing the school and/or community. Student leaders conduct summits that identify key issues that the students face, generate solutions and tactics to address the issues. The process encourages all students to join the conversation and fully participate. The outcome of the summits is a Civic Action Plan, which students spend several months implementing. Previous participants of the program have contributed nearly 150,000 hours of community service to their schools and communities through implementation of their RSVP Civic Action Plans.

NASSP and NASC seek to enhance the RSVP programming with a robust Web site offering multimedia training components, a digital implementation guide, and an online community for participants to share experiences. In addition, NASSP wishes to update and expand the RSVP implementation guide with specific recommendations for using the process with elementary and middle level students, thus expanding the program to reach the entire K-12 pipeline. This revised guide will also contain case studies and guidelines for using the RSVP process to address specific issues of national importance including bullying, tolerance, school drop out, technology, and nutrition.

This unique program has visibility with and impact on, an exceptionally large group of stakeholders: from principals to students, student council advisers to community members involved with Civic Action Plan implementation, and potentially local government and the media. NASSP seeks a strategic partner interested in aligning their brand with this program and its reach.

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NHS Scholarship Fund: Investing in Excellence
The purpose of the National Honor Society (NHS) Scholarship Fund is to enhance the existing scholarship program with additional financial resources to provide a larger number of high school seniors who are members of NHS with increased funding to help them defray the rising costs of college. NASSP annually provides a significant financial contribution of $200,000 to the scholarship fund. However, the revised program will only be viable with additional external funding from various donors and sponsors. A plan containing opportunities for sponsorship at a variety of levels can be shared with interested parties. At higher levels of contribution several key marketing benefits will be offered to sponsors/funders to gain exposure to this highly prestigious audience. NASSP is seeking to enhance the NHS scholarships to achieve three objectives and maintain them annually:

• Double the number of applicants from 8,000 to 16,000 (one per chapter)
• Double the number of scholarships from 150 to 300
• Double the award amount from $1,000 to $2,000

For more information on the existing scholarship program go to: www.nhs.us/nhsscholarship

NASC National Councils of Excellence Awards
The NASC National Council of Excellence Awards provide national recognition for middle level and high school student councils that consistently provide quality leadership activities and service to their schools and communities. This award provides broader recognition for the most worthy efforts of NASC member schools. All NASC member schools are encouraged to apply. All schools found to meet the criteria for their grade level (middle or high school) will be recognized.

There are two levels of recognition for the National Council of Excellence Awards. The base level is the National Council of Excellence that is awarded to student councils that meet all of the required standards and a minimum set of additional criteria. The National Gold Council of Excellence is awarded to the student councils that demonstrate the highest levels of leadership and activities as illustrated by meeting all of the required standards and a greater set of the additional criteria. For more information, go to NASC National Council of Excellence Award.

NASC Student Leaders Program
The NASC Student Leaders Program is a rigorous and challenging national skill and knowledge-based recognition program created by the National Association of Student Councils to identify outstanding individual student council leaders in NASC member high schools. All students who have demonstrated their personal leadership abilities and met the program criteria are eligible to be named certified student leaders by NASC.

The program goals are:

• To give schools a tool that will enhance and improve their efforts to develop student leaders
• Challenge students to work for recognition that is based on their abilities and knowledge in the area of leadership
• Provide authentic assessment and national recognition
• Support the standards and goals of the National Council of Excellence Awards
• Add value to students' college and scholarship applications

For more information, go to the NASC Student Leaders Program.

For more information, contact Leslie Distler, Director, Strategic Alliances at distlerl@nassp.org.