Students Offer Ideas to Improve Club Support

Katja Radovic-Jonsson

Clubs allow students to expand their interests and expertises along with meeting like-minded students with similar interests. But bringing those opportunities to students can be challenging for student executives, and some Hamber clubs say they could use additional support doing so.

Clubs are a key part of the school community and a way for incoming students to immerse themselves in their new school. Eric Hamber Student Council’s clubs official list catalogs 56 registered clubs for the 2021-2022 school year.

Many clubs, like Hamber’s Coding Club and Math Club, take academic topics beyond the curriculum and allow students to better learn and understand the skill being taught. “We provide kids

with fun programming related activities,” said Tyler Chen (11), co-head of the Coding Club, “We teach stuff that’s outside a normal school curriculum as well.” Although clubs have found creative ways to connect during the pandemic, like STEM Sorority’s online games night and COVID-safe starfish dissections, clubs have faced many struggles in keeping up morale and engagement in face of the pandemic.

Limits on the number of members permitted at meetings and scheduling problems have made the jobs of some club heads more difficult during the pandemic. Many clubs disbanded or were put on hiatus during the first semester, such as Craft Club run by Noah Yu (11) and Jenna Huynh (11) but now as COVID-19 restrictions ease, clubs have started to go back to how they operated pre-COVID 19. “This year, it’s been really busy, since a lot more people want to join clubs again,” Yu, head of Craft Club, noted optimistically.

Most other clubs have now resumed club events and consistent meetings with reliable numbers COVID restrictions ease.

However, there are still some restrictions and setbacks due to the pandemic for clubs. After Winter Break clubs were not allowed to hold club meetings for approximately three weeks, causing some disconnect between clubs and their members. In Math Club, some of the members who were supposed to attend Math Challengers, a team competition the club participates in annually, dropped out of the competition because they couldn’t attend meetings due to COVID concerns. According to Jenny Li (12), Co-President of Math Club, the club also had to cancel lunch meetings due to the members’ concern over eating with masks off. Craft Club is still operating with a limit to how many people can be in a room at a time due to the art rooms’ limited capacity, and use sign-up sheets for members to fill out.

Many club heads expressed a common issue: scheduling. During the pandemic, many clubs either weren’t able to hold meetings or had very few meetings, such as Craft Club and Coding Club, or had to hold double the meeting for each cohort, like Debate Club and STEM sorority. “Last [school] year, when I was a club exec, it was really, really hard to schedule times that worked,” said Dean Rohman (12), President of Debate Club, “The biggest issue we faced with COVID is scheduling conflicts and time constraints.”

Some club heads have also found a lack of communication and a disconnect between school administration and clubs.

When asked what support his club was given during the pandemic, Rohman said that last school year, they received “very little support”, adding that he “didn’t really have anyone [he] could go to and talk to”. “The school didn’t make it clear if we were supposed to go talk to a specific person about changing club times or things like that,” he added.

This has caused some problems across clubs. Li stated that she didn’t even know if clubs could run last school year, seeing as “it wasn’t publicly posted anywhere [that] clubs [were] still going on”. Yu from Craft Club pointed out that Craft Club is still missing information about their budget.

This lack of communication has worsened the problem of scheduling for some. Coding club heads Chen and Gaertner pointed out the need for more warning from teachers if there are events during meeting times. “We’ve had a couple meetings been cancelled last minute because we just hadn’t been told there was a fire drill, ‘’ said Gaertner. “Our meetings are during FIT time and the idea behind FIT time is that it’s a free block essentially for the students to do what they want; it sounds like a perfect time to host clubs. But the school keeps hosting fire drills and other events like that really cuts the space we have available” added Chen.

Overall, clubs have noted a lack of direction from staff. “The administrator never really said anything about how clubs should run, so that was all up to us,” said Li. “I think school should have more of a support system,” said Rohman. “They should let you know where you should go if you have any issues with your club, it doesn’t seem that clear right now who we’re supposed to go to.” He stressed the need for “some teacher or admin that can be there for [all] clubs.”

Clubs are required to have a sponsor teacher, who serves to support student executives. However, students said more support from staff, that doesn’t infringe on operational independence, would be appreciated.

When asked to comment on the issues mentioned by the interviewed club heads, one of Hamber’s Vice Principals, Mr. D. Ambrose, who is the administrator generally responsible for clubs, emphasized that Hamber’s club heads should seek more help from their club sponsors.

“[Club heads] need to involve their sponsors more, their sponsors are their connection to [administration].”

But, Ambrose says he’s happy to aid club heads that need help that can’t be addressed through their sponsor. “They can always come in and speak to me... my door is always open,” he assured.

As for FIT, Ambrose explained that FIT blocks are designated as instrucitonal time. And while clubs may choose to hold meetings and events during those blocks, assemblies and fire drills can be expected just like in regular classroom instructional time. Clubs are extracurricular, and meetings should be held before or after school, or during lunch hour, he advised.

Speaking to the importance of clubs, Ambrose said they are “integral” to building school climate.

“When you’re more invested in your school, you’re just more successful.”