Budget woes make fudging club membership easier

Parent Cafe
1

<p>The farce that is club membership at our high school has just gotten worse. Club and sports both meet after school during the same block of time. As it was, kids were somehow managing to be in two places at once, or in neither place at all, and yet were still claiming membership. Unfortunately, the honest student who was actually committed to attending meetings and practices was sometimes penalized for local awards and scholarships because it appeared s/he was less involved than the faker. The abuses became rampant, folks complained, and so the school instituted an attendance standard of 50% for clubs. While this is an improvement over what was, IMO that standard is ridiculous. Can you just go to work 50% of the time? Is it acceptable to only attend class 50% of the time? Should you only parent 50% of the time? Anyway, some club advisors skirted the new rule and allowed their pets to miss meetings and events without an attendance penalty.</p>

<p>But now, clubs whose membership is below a certain number of students will be eliminated next year in order to save money. So, teachers have allegedly begun allowing students to sign in to club meetings and then leave. This way, kids can be "involved" without really doing anything, and in return the teachers keep their membership numbers high enough so their club survives and they don't lose their advisor's stipend.</p>

<p>I hear similar horror stories from parents at other schools. Of course, elite colleges are looking for more than mere membership; they want impact or demonstrable results which are easier to verify. Still, the vast majority of kds aren't applying to the Ivies and top LAC's. Isn't it about time colleges put less emphasis on EC's? Kids think adcoms want to see EC's, but many don't have the time or interest to really do them, and this nonsense is the result. Membership and club involvement is too hard to verify for the ordinary drone.</p>

2

<p>“But now, clubs whose membership is below a certain number of students will be eliminated next year in order to save money.”</p>

<p>How much money do most clubs cost? What types of clubs are these? Most clubs don’t cost much money to run. For example, my school has an Improv Acting Club. The students go to the drama room, and… improv. That doesn’t cost the school money. Or like, my school also has a Make-A-Wish Foundation Club. That doesn’t cost the school any money either; it raises money for the Make-A-Wish foundation. I don’t understand what types of clubs these are that they cause a significant financial impact on the school.</p>

<p>Clubs at my high school don’t get money from the school (except for the Newspaper and Literary Magazine, but those aren’t exactly clubs). They get to use a classroom, but that’s it. The initiative has to come from the students if they want funding for their club. Most of the clubs at my school have various fundraisers (like bake sales) to raise money. If the clubs want to go on a field trip, then usually club members have to pay to go on it.</p>

3

<p>clubs dont get money but the teachers do get $$ for being the advisors of said clubs. Anywhere from $2500 and up.</p>

4

<p>I think that colleges have minimal interest in a kid’s membership in the typical high school club.</p>

5

<p>most of the teachers who run clubs at my HS don’t get paid. I don’t think you can assume all these clubs are paid positions.</p>

<p>I know the science club, german club, and the chess club advisors are not paid</p>

6

<p>our school all advisors are paid, so depends on the individual districts</p>