By: Cheney Hurley –
When it comes to clubs, Southeast provides a wide variety to choose from. In this tantalizing buffet of options, there is everything from Knights of Hip Hop and Rocket Club, to One Direction Club and Frolfing Club. Even if you are choosy when it comes to clubs, there is something for everyone.
Many clubs have been started at Southeast, but unless you personally know someone who has started one, it’s difficult to know how to create one. You’ve probably noticed a variety of new clubs showing up, but many of us don’t know how they really got started.
“Anybody can start a club. There aren’t a lot of restrictions on clubs,” said Rob Baltensperger Education Coordinator and the LSE administrator in charge of clubs. “I need a teacher willing to sponsor [the club], the student to come up with a description for the club, and then it obviously needs to be school appropriate.”
Clubs originally met outside of school, either before or after school, but when Brent Toalson became principal five years ago, he decided to change it to the form we have today with clubs meeting during the school day.
On Southeast’s homepage, there are not really any guidelines or instructions for students regarding how to start a club. Under the club subsection of the website, it says to contact Baltensperger with any questions.
“Twice a year I send an email out to staff saying if there is any interest in a club to please let me know, but we probably don’t do as good of a job communicating that to students as we should,” Baltensperger said.
The majority of clubs are accepted unless they are deemed inappropriate by administration or if another club already established is very similar to the proposed club. “There aren’t very many clubs we deny. We want kids to be creative and have a lot of opportunities for clubs,” said Baltensperger.
Juniors Abby Peterson and Harrison Hall started Young Democrats this semester and found it very easy to set up their club. “I feel like there would be a lot more clubs about a lot more things if people knew how to make [a club],” said Peterson. “People think it’s a lot harder than it actually is or they just don’t know how to go about [starting one].”
There are currently 598 students that are signed up for clubs and the majority of students are signed up for 2 clubs. Principal Toalson also decided to limit the amount of clubs you are allowed to sign for to two clubs per semester.
“We don’t want kids signing up just to get out of class. We want them to have clubs that are meaningful. It’s tough because we do have some kids that are really involved and would legitimately want to do more,” said Baltensperger.
Throughout the whole year, posters are put up in different hallways around the school, but there aren’t any guidelines written out about what can be put on those signs. Baltensperger says a poster can get approved by any administrator in the office, but every poster should have a stamp on it saying it has been approved. Like many things in the school, it is a judgment call made by an administrator on whether the content of a poster is deemed appropriate for the hallways. Peterson believes there should be some more concrete rules on what should be allowed to be posted in the hallways and says she was very careful when getting her posters approved.
“We were trying to be as passive as possible when making our posters. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything that anybody could say that we were doing wrong,” said Peterson. “I want to be as careful as possible.”
Peterson hopes Young Democrats will be a long lasting club like DECA, FBLA, and Key Club have been.
Senior Sophie Miller is the president of Key Club. Key Club is a service club that volunteers throughout the community. Miller accredits the longevity of the club to people wanting to volunteer along with the required Government and Politics service hours needed for seniors.
“Volunteer work is something that schools value and emphasize. It is rewarding for yourself and helps other people,” said Miller.
Miller thinks people will continue to sign up for Key Club and points out that there is still room for improvement in the club.
“It is kind of disappointing that our [enrollment] numbers dropped from about 80 to 20 [people] from the beginning of the year [to now],” said Miller. “If it is thinned down to a lot smaller group, those people care more and that’s important.”
There is still plenty of room on the serving table for more clubs, so if nothing on the buffet of clubs entices you, you can contact Mr. Baltensperger to start your own club.
