A club is only as good as the number of people it has. However, as the years roll by and the school continues to grow, the push for clubs has become an afterthought for many students. Coming into their freshmen year, many students’ priority is making friends, establishing themselves and trying to figure out who they are. Clubs are one of the best ways to do so, yet we are nine weeks into the year, and many students, freshmen or not, have still not officially joined a club.
This wouldn’t be a problem if, as a school, we had additional club fairs, people utilized the Falcon Facts and clubs worked more efficiently to advertise.
As a student body, we need to create more opportunities for those students to find their place by hosting more than one club fair a year, allowing students who may have been unable to find a club that resonated with them early in the year another opportunity to try and find something.
Being a P-TECH school of choice has its natural drawbacks – no competitive sports teams, for example – so when new students join our campus, they often come from campuses where they did play sports or were so overshadowed by the athletic culture that they were able to avoid involvement on their own campus. Now that they’ve transferred to a school with no competitive sports and where they will receive individualized attention, for better or worse, they don’t know what to do.
When we come back to school, one of the first orders of business is the club fair. According to Debate Team captain Kylie Trexler the number of active debate members increased substantially from the initial 11 in the 24-25 year to an incredible 35. Alongside that, Robotics – the biggest organization on campus – saw a sizeable increase in participants this year. According to Robotics president Eric Barnard, 54 members were added this year, bringing the total to 94 members. This increased engagement in both organizations, while not entirely attributed to the club fair, was seen after the event took place.
Another place they could look to keep up with club and organization news is the Falcon Facts released through Parent Square. Every week, principal Mrs.Wiley posts important things that happened the week before, and upcoming events, so parents and students can be updated on what’s happening around the school. Some of those highlights include clubs or members who may have done an outstanding job in representing their organization. Additionally, The Wingspan reports on interesting events clubs will or have done. If students were to keep up with these, they could see more of the opportunities they have on campus; conversely, the daily announcements are another way to hear about what goes on around the school.
Finally, keeping students’ attention throughout the school year becomes very difficult, and students’ memories become even worse. This is why advertising is so important; organizations need to provide reminders for their students. According to Lumen Learning, one of the main objectives of advertising is to remind. If organizations were to keep up advertisements going through the entire school year, be it posters or announcements hung on the felt boards by the entrance or near water fountains, the student body would be more likely to get involved in a certain club or organization. More advertisements like those would also provide opportunities for already involved students to branch out and learn about different clubs that may interest them, in case they were involved in another club that took the majority of their attention.
Club leaders need to take more initiative in recruiting students. As the number of students continues to grow, so does the amount of involvement in the school. All it would take is an additional club fair, students taking the onus to look at the Falcon Facts and clubs finding more ways to keep students’ attention throughout the school year. Our school values itself on the organizations and clubs built within it, so whether it’s in their freshman or their senior year, every student needs to be involved.
