House System Boosts Student Involvement and Enthusiasm

At the beginning of the year, each student, faculty and staff member was randomly assigned to one of four houses: Aqua, Aura, Flamma and Terra. Students will stay in their assigned house for their entire high school career.

The idea for houses first came from senior Carlo Campanini. Here’s what he had to say about the new house system:

The houses are Latin names for four elements:  Aqua (Water), Aura (Air), Flamma (Fire), and Terra (Earth). I took four years of Latin so I had to throw that in there. Also, Latin names just sound better!

Nowadays, people need an incentive to do things, and I knew if we created a competition, it could encourage people to become more involved in the school. I really wanted to break down the barriers between the grades. If we put all the high school students in an environment where they’re together, you’re more likely to get better results.

My dad is British and he grew up at a school where they had houses, so he was able to give me insight about how that worked.

Students can earn points by going to events, such as games, concerts and plays. They also earn points for with academic achievements such as honors and highest honors. The house that gets the fewest number of detentions will also earn points. The house system opens the door for a lot of opportunities, for example, students earned points for attending the Music Boosters event, Music@Moe’s. There’s so much more that can be done with it.

I knew the students were the key. If administration liked it but the students didn’t, it would crash and burn. I spent a lot of time talking to students before I even proposed the idea to make sure there was a base of approval among the student body.

One of HT’s strengths is that they do a really good job transitioning students into junior high and from 8^th to 9^th grades. By creating something just for the high school, it allows the junior high time to get excited about it. Now that we have houses, that jump from 8^th to 9^th grade will really bring some excitement. It helps build up school spirit throughout the years.

I wasn’t planning to originally, but after hearing that faculty and staff were so excited about it, I thought they shouldn’t be held back. Having faculty and staff involved creates a better environment for the students.

I knew that in order for the school to pick this up, it had to be efficient. Another local school has houses, but they do everything by hand. I knew there was no way we would be able to do that. I took AP Computer Science and I am familiar with Java, so I built a database with everyone in it and it runs everything automatically. Each student, faculty and staff member has been given a unique barcode that can be easily scanned at each event. My Java program can find every person, add their points to their house and tally the points for each house – it just takes a few seconds. We scan the barcodes using an app, so anyone can download it.

I wanted the main prize to be something traditional, like a House Cup or a trophy that can be engraved with the name of the house and the year that they won – something that stays at the school forever. I also knew there had to be another incentive for students, so we’re planning an end-of-year party and if your house wins, you get in for free. Also, if you win, your house gets out-of-uniform privileges for the week of final exams.

I think if students take the initiative to say “Hey, I’m going to go to this game,” it has an absolute landslide effect. If one person does it, then two more people hop on, and eventually your whole group of friends is going. Don’t be afraid to try to get involved.