Clubs are often deemed an essential aspect of the high school community. The wide range of clubs at Portola High provide students with various opportunities, both academic and nonacademic, to explore a new interest or get involved in their community.
Though many students create clubs at the beginning of the year with the intention of adding to the school community, a number of these clubs are terminated by the end of first semester after accumulating three strikes due to various possible infractions including incorrectly filling out or not submitting club minute forms, not having a minimum of 10 members, breaking financial rules, not attending Inter-Club Council meetings, and so on.
Instead of terminating these clubs until the following year, club presidents of formerly established clubs should have the opportunity to reapply to start their clubs at the beginning of second semester.
Allowing clubs to be reinstated would give students more chances to demonstrate their clubs’ qualities. Beyond just providing an advantage for college applications, extracurricular participation has a positive correlation with increased levels of attendance, academic achievement and aspirations for continuing education beyond high school, according to the Department of Education.
“The second we got terminated last year, all the things that we had saved were reduced,” co-founder and president of the South Asian Student Association and junior Ananya Vuppula said. “When that happens, it’s harder for us to get back up and running and have enough money to put on events that we want to. If we had a second chance last year, that would have been very helpful.”
However, creating this additional opportunity for club founders has a chance of increasing the workload for advisers and ASB club commissioners. Further, allowing clubs to restart may tempt some club presidents into slacking off until the second semester mark.
“I don’t support the idea of another opportunity for clubs to be restarted in the spring,”ASB adviser and social studies teacher Emily Sheridan said. “If a club has been terminated, that means that they’ve already made three mistakes. I think our three strike policy is generous. Also, the process of creating clubs takes hours and review from our club commissioner and our executive board.”
To prevent this, once again, only clubs that were created at the start of the year can reapply. Additionally, if club founders showed no commitment to their club in the previous semester — for example not submitting club minutes at all or never attending ICC meetings — then their request can be denied.
“When you have a group of students who represent the student body, they have to talk to clubs,” president of the Black Student Union and ASB student representative and senior Gabe Mutsvangwa said. “The three strike rule is fair, I agree with that. But you also have to allow students the chance to grow and to understand that they’re a club because I think, unfortunately, the ASB views certain clubs as just a piece of paper, which would be the club minutes. They don’t actually see the work that goes in from each of the students over the course of their club’s duration over the course of the year.”
Ultimately, allowing club founders to restart clubs helps aid in maintaining a fundamental extracurricular aspect of the school community and ensuring that students have the opportunity to explore their unique interests.
