Activity Points
at Hackensack High School
At Hackensack High School, students are given activity points to indicate their
participation in extra-curricular activities. These activities include sports,
academic activities, clubs, etc. The points are given at the discretion of the
coach, teacher, or advisor involved. The person vouching for the participation
of the student indicates the student's name and the number of hours of participation.
(One activity point is given for each 20 hours of participation -- until 1998, it
took 40 hours to earn one point.) There is a maximum of 80 hours per semester
per activity that can be awarded. Note that if a student spends one period (40 minutes)
a day in an activity, this will come out to about 60 hours per semester, or three
points, since there are about 90 school days per semester.
Non-athletic activities count toward "Activity H" pins given at graduation: 50 or
more activity points earns a gold pin; 25 to 50 points earns a silver pin.
The students' activity points are also recorded on their transcripts to indicate
their participation in school activities.
The National Honor Society's constitution requires 15 points (300 hours) of
service activities
for admission.* The National Honor Society's Faculty Council determines which
activities it will recognize as service activities for this purpose. A list of
which activities are currently recognized is posted at
http://hackensackhigh.org/activiti.html To be considered a service activity,
the purpose of the activity must to do altruistic service for others. Activities
such as shelving books in the library, tutoring elementary school students,
helping as an aide at the hospital, are good examples of the kind of activities
which qualify under the honor society's criteria. Playing football or other sports,
cheerleading, student politics, FBLA,
school yearbook, school newspaper, school play, are good examples of activities
which do not qualify even though the argument can be made that they provide some
kind of service; altruistic service to others is not the principal purpose of
these activities.
* Note that there is no longer the requirement which had existed when some of
the faculty were students at Hackensack High School, namely that the student has
earned "75 activity points of which 15 are for service activities"
or later that the student
has earned "50 activity points of which 15 are for service activities" --
this earlier requirement
helps in understanding the honor society's notion of service.