Credit: Caroline Kiernan

The National Honors Society Wayland Chapter recently announced that they are breaking off of the National Society, and changing to form their own “Wayland High School Honors Society,” which will not be restricted by the National limitations.

In early December, Principal Allyson Mizoguchi and academic support teacher Aimee Lima announced the Wayland chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS) will be discontinued after this year, making the Class of 2026 the final class to be inducted.

According to an email sent out by Mizoguchi and Lima, NHS at Wayland felt “constricted” by some aspects of its guidelines, especially the “selection and discipline processes.”

“While these elements might not have been visible to the student body on a daily basis, they had a significant impact on our ability to lead the organization in a way that felt fair and consistent with Wayland High School’s values,” Lima said.

The requirements to be accepted for NHS at Wayland are a minimum of a 3.5 grade point average, 50 hours of community service and five essays. The NHS Constitution states that applicants are judged on their “service, leadership and character.”

“I think the problem is that there are a lot of requirements that you have to meet when you’re applying, and also when you’re in the society, to be part of it,” NHS President Audrey Larson said. “If you don’t meet those [requirements] they can even kick you off NHS, which we really don’t want to do.”

Moving forward, current senior members of NHS, along with some volunteer juniors, will work to create the new Wayland High School Honors Society. This group will not be affiliated with the official National Honors Society, which organizers said will give Wayland more flexibility in how it operates. The new society will set its own selection processes and “overall vision.”

“We want a society that celebrates our school’s values, and we believe the best way to achieve that is to have students build it from the ground up,” Lima said.

Some students have expressed concerns about the potential impact this change could have on their college applications. Lima, however, said she does not think the name change will have a significant impact.

“We believe that a Wayland High School Honor Society, built by our students and reflecting our community’s high standards, will carry just as much prestige and meaning, while being much more authentic to who we are,” Lima said.

According to Larson, the new society will be more representative of what WHS values as a whole.

“We’re trying to put together a society that’s more representative of things that we value,” Larson said. “We might not even include such a high GPA [requirement] that you have to meet because [NHS] is really about service. The whole point of it is to give back to your community. We want people who actually want to give back to the community, not just people who are meeting a certain GPA.”

Larson also said the new society will help identify students who are motivated by service, rather than those who join primarily for their college applications.

“We want to make sure that the group of people actually want to be here, not just people who want the label for their college application,” Larson said. “We want people who really want to participate in community service. I think it’s going to be a lot more service-based, and give more opportunities for members to really participate.”

According to Mizoguchi’s email, she said an induction ceremony is planned for the Class of 2027 in April of 2026.

“We believe that building a new honor society – which still includes the central pillars of service, leadership and academic excellence – will bring pride and excitement to both the process and the outcome,” Mizoguchi wrote.