Stacey Behrensmeyer, a math teacher and National Honor Society (NHS) adviser at Highlands High School in Fort Thomas, KY, brought her five officers to the recent NHS Conference in Chicago. With more than 15 years of experience as an NHS adviser at different schools, Behrensmeyer has attended national conferences in the past, but this was the first year she brought students from Highlands High School, where she has served as the adviser for three years. She shares why the conference was such a valuable experience for advisers and NHS members alike.
What was the best part of the conference for your NHS leaders and for you as an adviser?
The opportunity to meet kids from all over and better understand the common mission of NHS, whether it’s in Kentucky or Arizona or Puerto Rico or wherever. There’s a common vision for NHS, and then there’s how that vision plays out in their particular chapters. It’s nice for our students to meet people and see what it’s like where they are. That’s also true for me. I enjoy the collaboration with other advisers because I’ve done this for a long time, and I don’t want to get stuck in certain practices if there are better ways to do things. The time allotted for advisers to get together to talk and discuss strategies and new ideas—for example, how to be more organized or to manage the chapter or to try new things—that’s always very valuable to me.
Did you pick up any ideas you want to try at your school?
One night when the advisers got together, I had a really good conversation with some of them about service hours. Every chapter obviously has required hours, and that’s a big part of our jobs. But one school tracks service hours using a point system as opposed to an accumulation of hours. That was intriguing to me. I’ve already followed up and gotten more resources from the chapter. I think this approach might be something that’s easier for me to manage and more straightforward for the students.
Any highlights from the workshops or keynote speakers?
I really liked hearing from other advisers about practical things, like discipline or dismissals. And it’s great to hear from people at NASSP about goals and for more of a national perspective. The students really enjoyed the sessions where they did hands-on activities with other groups on topics like building teamwork.
Do you plan to bring a group to next year’s conference?
It’s definitely worthwhile. I hope we can continue attending. The students had to pay for themselves, which meant they spent some extra time in the summer working toward earning money for the trip. We drove to Chicago this year. The car ride proved to be quite the adventure, as well. We don’t often have time to talk about important things at a deep level because these are the students in school who are involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. The hours spent together in the van allowed us time to connect, laugh, learn new things about each other, and plan for some upcoming events for NHS. I’m glad we were able to include a very memorable road trip to our weekend agenda.