Wayland School Committee backs dual-track honor society plan

WAYLAND — March 25, 2026 — Wayland keeps NHS and adds a locally built honor society after student-led redesign. A panel of Wayland High School students and academic support coordinator Amy Lima told the School Committee on Tuesday they will run National Honor Society alongside a new, unnamed society organized around five values — community, impact, commitment, intentionality and curiosity — replacing NHS's GPA-only "yes-no checkbox" scholarship pillar with teacher recommendations and evidence of academic curiosity. Senior NHS President Audrey said the existing chapter feels like "a celebration" of past achievement while the new group will be about what students "build and do" in high school. Separately, Director of Finance Kirsteen Patterson reported a projected $826,000 year-end balance and confirmed that the Finance Committee and Select Board severed a roughly $2 million baseball field project from the FY27 capital package, funding only the high school wastewater treatment plant; Wayland baseball continues to bus to off-site fields at about $15,000 a year. The committee tabled a non-resident tuition revolving fund vote to April 8.