Recently, the school promised to allocate time for hosting club meetings during the school day. It went on once, let me emphasize this, once. It went along well, based on my own experience and from what I’ve heard from other teachers. However, the week after, it wasn’t hosted as club time, but rather as it had been hosted and managed before.
This raises issues, for one, they promised that time and allowed the clubs to create time for themselves, directly contradicting themselves. Two, not all students may have room open before and/or after school. This creates a hierarchy where students who drive, walk, or have reasonable accessibility to school rank at the top. Although, giving clubs room to meet during the day opens those opportunities up to students throughout the school. It allows for a break in that hierarchy and gives them a chance to represent themselves. These openings for flex time communicate what clubs are also open to the students that the school doesn’t often offer.
The Issue and Alternatives
The removal of this came with issues presented to the school board. Specifically, it cut away seat time necessary for graduation, while the flex times we naturally host offer that seat time, club time can’t be necessitated as necessary seat time. This is an issue, and as stated, it cuts away seat time needed for graduation and can stop people from being able to graduate. For this issue, it can’t be brought back unless we make the school day longer to accommodate that loss of seat time. If instead, we were to implement it partly and at much shorter intervals, while potentially keeping in parts of that normal flex time, we could validate including them as seat time. Instead of outright removing them, integrating them into the schedule we know. There can still be study halls for people who need that time to study, and/or don’t want to meet for a club.
As stated, you could always increase the amount of time in the day, whether the students or board would agree with that change, it is always going to be one solution. Increasing the amount of seat time during a day to negate the removal of seat time through club times.
While being one solution, you can integrate and intersperse the content we already involve in the class periods. Integrating the higher education content into the clubs and using them as part of the situation. For example, one assignment coming from those higher education courses is writing your own resume, so if you were to write the club into that resume, it could be included in that process. Thus involving it both as a class and as actual club time that you can involve yourself in and open yourself up to more opportunities.
Time Constraints
Many students, whether they’re riding the bus, driving, or walking, don’t have the time to be able to get to school early to meet for clubs. The same applies to clubs that meet after school; many students don’t have opportunities to get to clubs during that time. Because of this issue, clubs become limited to a select number of students. Cutting down on their demographics greatly reduces those numbers. This becomes an advantage of integrating club meet times during the week, for students who may not be able to meet during other times. Instead meeting during the school day, it lets them join clubs previously closed to them and actually associate more with the school.
My own example grows on this, because of the meet time, I opened myself up to more clubs and further realized what was actually happening during the school year. Seeing that there was a journalism club, it led me to want to join it and integrate myself into something more than what I was previously doing. I imagine many students know this experience well, not knowing what’s open to them. Clubs may be listed on the school website, but they don’t nearly have the exposure needed to pull members into them. The school has been doing better with this as of recent, allowing for some clubs to broadcast themselves on OCTV and showcase what they’re doing, hopefully pulling members and getting members to want to join them. Whether this can express the interest is up to the student; experiencing the club, however, can better lead people to be interested.
Ultimately, whether or not the school board can bring club time back is up to them. Although many can agree that this supports clubs and lets people express themselves and experience what clubs offer
