On Feb. 8 as well as 9, members of Spanish National Honor Society (SNHS) drove to Olathe to babysit children at Central Elementary School during parent-teacher conferences.

Senior secretary of SNHS, Maren Ozier, organized the event. Her mother is a counselor at Central and told her daughter it would help the flow of conferences if the children were not running around or causing a distraction.

Ozier then decided she would offer the opportunity to the rest of SNHS.

“ I decided to help because I knew it would be a great opportunity to speak Spanish without traveling too far.” junior Laura Tobin said. “ I was excited to be able to speak Spanish with natives to improve my kills.”

The population at Central Elementary is primarily 75 percent Hispanic, thus giving  SNHS members the chance to speak the language with the children as well as parents.

“They [the elementary school kids] were fun to get to talk to,” Ozier said. “It was cool to see how different their lives are from when we were in elementary school.”

Since this was the first year this event had been offered, not many parents utilized the opportunity because they didn’t realize it was available. Ozier wishes more kids had come, but she says the ones there were still entertaining.

There are many other opportunities offered through Central Elementary for the club. In the past, Ozier has been a translator when making phone calls to the parents for her mom. She is mostly able to understand, however it can be more challenging over the phone since she cannot see the words they’re mouthing and they speak rapidly. Over the summer SNHS also interpreted for the parents.

In March SNHS will be returning to Central to sort shoes that they received for a shoe drive in the fall.

“The main goal is to try and branch out of the Johnson County area,” senior president of SNHS Ellie Dickens said. “We want to help more outside of here and into Olathe and the inner city schools.”