New National Honor Society Program at Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill

Up one flight of stairs in the stately main building of Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School in Frontenac is the school’s library. The library has something in common with hotels worldwide. The doors are never locked.

“When I get here at 6:30 in the morning, students are all ready in the library with their noses in books,” said Cherie LeMay, the librarian in her sixth year working for the school.

The library offers a warm, comfortable environment for students in grades six through 12.

The physical layout is “L” shaped with different rooms segmenting the space. The place is clean, neat and carpeted. It provides a soothing place to read a book or jump-start daily homework assignments.

This year, Krista Richardson, a 1976 Villa graduate and director of school activities grades nine through 12, organized an after-school mentoring program with the 40 girls in National Honor Society (NHS).

Some of the students, especially those in middle school and their first year of high school, need an extra boost with homework. Some need guidance to form better study habits.

That’s where NHS comes in.

The other day, Alex Fox was working one-on-one with a senior and an eighth-grade transfer student. With the senior, she was giving insight to answering math problems on the ACT. With the freshman, it was review time for Spanish I.

“Getting into the NHS is demanding,” Richardson said. “Our girls have to have a 3.5 GPA, they must make application and they have to have strong traits in service, leadership and personal characteristics.”

Getting all this organized is no easy task. Nearly 85 percent of the girls take part in after-school activities and sports, so coming and going in field hockey uniforms and golf outfits is typical.

“We just work with the kids between their other practices. Some are on JV field hockey, so they might not practice until later, so we have the girls until they need to go,” Richardson said. “Ideally, we’d like to have at least three NHS members present at a time."

The genesis of this program began when the school urged Cathy Vaterott, a member of the education department at the University of Missouri, St. Louis to speak to the students about forming good study habits. “We were just all fired up after her presentation,” Richardson said.

“We find sometimes, the girls just learn better from their peers. It’s almost like the students are translating learning to each other. Some of the girls just need to develop better study skills, and that’s where our mentors come in,” Richardson said.

At Villa, it seems if someone is not an expert with a certain subject, someone else is.

“If one of the mentors needs to teach Spanish and they are taking French, they will just go out in the hall and grab someone who can better solve that immediate problem,” Richardson said. “You know, there’s no book that can tell us exactly how to do this.”

LeMay pointed out that Villa does a lot of collaborative learning. Though the library has a bank of up-to-date HP computers, printers and scanners, LeMay still likes the old-fashioned learn by reading process.

“We promote a lot of recreational reading and growth of information through the development of literacy skills. We have students, that, if they have a free hour between classes, they will come in here for proctored studying during the school day. There’s a constant flow in and out of the library entrance. We’re a learning community here,” LeMay said.