By: Codie Tucker, Comstock High School NHS Student, MAHS Board of Delegates 2007-2008
How are you able to recognize both the graduating members as well as the teachers in your district? What about a dinner with both the graduating members of your chapter/council and a teacher of their choice? This does not mean that the adviser is stuck putting together this whole dinner. In fact, they are just responsible for guiding the juniors, who are responsible for making the whole night come together.
The first thing that happens in our chapter at Comstock High School is to form a Senior/Teacher Recognition Dinner Committee. This committee works well if it is mostly composed of juniors, with the exception of one or two seniors. Both of the juniors and seniors have different responsibilities. The juniors book a reservation at a hall or catering to come into the school. They decorate the area that the dinner is to be hosted, and serve the food to the seniors and each senior's selected teacher. Seniors on the committee are responsible for finding out what the rest of the seniors would like to eat that night, and which teacher each senior is deciding to recognize that night.
Our chapter holds the dinner at the end of the year before the seniors are done with their exams, so the committee needs to start meeting maybe once a month starting in January, then we suggest that the committee starts meeting once a week in April to make sure that everything runs smoothly on the night of the dinner. The first thing that you need to think about when meeting once a month is where the dinner is going to take place. In past years we have had the dinner in our own media center and some years have catered in Fazoli's. The media center is a nice, small, warm environment to have this event. When we do this, there is a small group of graduating seniors. However, when we have a large graduating class, we have gone to a restaurant that had a buffet, or a select menu. There is a plus to both of these options. Staying in your media center would mean that you would save money in the long run. Plus, it would be quieter and a more warm feeling than if you were to go to a restaurant. Although, going out would mean that the juniors would not have to serve food or clean up.
As a part of recognizing the teachers, our seniors pick one teacher that they've had for a class and invite them to the dinner. Before the food is served our seniors give a speech recognizing the teacher they chose. After the speech the teacher is given a plaque that says they were recognized and by which student. The seniors are responsible for writing their speech to recognize their teacher. This is usually taken very seriously by our seniors, because they are very passionate about what their teacher has done for them.
The Senior/Teacher Recognition Dinner is a very meaningful event for both our seniors, and the teachers who are picked. As a senior this year I am looking forward to this dinner because it is finally my turn. This is a great ritual that my chapter has kept for the past years and I hope that you may be able to adopt it and make it as special for your seniors and teachers.
