This school year’s lack of Trojan Time club days has hurt clubs and students alike, and unfortunately, their future feels precarious.
Club days are the sole means of existence for pop-up exclusive clubs, but they’re important for traditional clubs, too.
“It makes it hard to plan if we aren’t even sure when the next one [club day] will be or if it will even happen,” said Elizabeth Correa Rodriguez, President of AFS Club.
In addition to meeting times, many traditional clubs rely on club days for members, too, and have struggled to find new members this year.
A shortage of Pop-Up Club signups was often informally blamed for this year’s lack of club days, but administrators Rob Hays and Paula Reilly both cited congestion in the Trojan Time schedule instead.
Trojan Time is taken up by Xello, CharacterStrong, enrollment, pep assemblies, travel days, and Link Crew activities, not leaving much room for club days. “I think unfortunately, club days have not been prioritized, ” Hays said.
It hasn’t always been this way, though.
“Much more curriculum has been added by the state,” said Hays. For example, the state of Kansas requires individual students to have a study plan; Topeka High uses Xello to fulfill this mandate.
Also, following quarantine, having a social-emotional program for students became “highly recommended” by the state of Kansas.
“The mental health of students changed after reopening after COVID,” Reilly said.
While not fully required by the state of Kansas, having a social-emotional health program is required by the 501 district; “it’s part of the school’s accreditation process,” said Reilly.
“We’ve chosen to do CharacterStrong because teachers have noticed students’ need for emotional support,” Dustin Dick, principal of Topeka High, said.
Does the mandate of these programs doom club days? It could, but it shouldn’t.
“A lot of that work [Xello and CharacterStrong] can be done in the first few months of school,” Hays said. “We need to reflect on how we can be more efficient as a school.”
It’s not that simple, though. Just because the timely completion of Xello and CharacterStrong activities is possible doesn’t mean it’s likely to happen.
Many students don’t feel motivated to work hard in Trojan Time because they’ve never faced repercussions for not doing so. The credit/no credit system of Trojan Time isn’t enough motivation because those credits are excessive to most students, and overall, Xello and CharacterStrong often feel like busywork.
Believing in the future of club days is your opinion to have, but with so many ideas and zero solutions, it’s doubtful. What scares me is that in all of my phone calls, emails and sit-down interviews for this story, I heard only problems, and not a single plan or proactive solution. I, and seemingly everyone else, can’t guarantee anything.