By Elizabeth Sanders
Staff Writer
Students in math study hall.
Club homerooms, when clubs meet during homeroom every other week, are a fairly new system, instituted within the last two years. This system was created to provide R.J. Reynolds High School students who can’t stay after school a way to still be part of an extracurricular community. Most recently, it has also become a period that athletes and non-athletes can use to their benefit.
“This is the first year we have had academic study halls and athletic team study halls during club homeroom,” Principal Intern Carlynne Richards said. “For example, we have a football study hall for rostered players, which gives them an extra thirty minutes with Coach Davidyock to go over plays or look over film.”
For other athletic teams, like basketball or cheerleading, study hall is a time to complete schoolwork before practice after school. For non-athletes, there are subject-based study halls in math and science where students can go if they want help with their homework. By implementing study halls and being open to suggestions like it, the school is working to steadily improve club homerooms.
One problem the school has yet to address is the abrupt cancellation of club homerooms, the most recent being on October 8th. It can make student leaders, like myself, feel like clubs aren’t the school’s priority. However, I’ve come to realize that isn’t true.
“Clubs are something we are serious about and something we’re not going to change our mind on,” Richards said. “We want everybody to find a club they want to be in.”
The October 8th cancellation was due to the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT), and standardized tests are one of the many reasons why club homeroom would be canceled.
“Sometimes [club homeroom] might have to be canceled depending on when report cards need to be distributed,” Richards said. “Or depending on what information we need to get out to each grade.”
Unfortunately, the cancellation isn’t announced until the week of in the weekly newsletter. As a result, club leadership, especially those who oversee clubs that meet solely during homeroom, has little time to adjust. These clubs are forced to reschedule for a meeting after school or to cancel their plans entirely.
To make it easier on club leaders, the school should announce the cancellation as soon as they know there will be a conflict and potentially reschedule for a regular homeroom. From my experience, most students don’t enjoy Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons, but they do have fun in clubs. If an SEL lesson is all that’s scheduled for that homeroom, I can’t see why there would be any trouble with canceling it and replacing it with a club homeroom.
Besides scheduling, another problem with club homerooms is that students aren’t where they’re supposed to be during that thirty-minute time slot.
“A lot of our students walk the halls or go out in the courtyard during club,” Richards said.
To remedy this, the school has emphasized that every student must be signed up for a club and has switched from a general attendance to a club-based attendance. Historically, there was a universal QR code for club homeroom attendance, and students could go to any club during club homeroom. With this new approach, students no longer have the same level of freedom, but they can still switch between clubs.
“You can alternate between two different clubs as long as you communicate that to your club sponsors and still scan the attendance QR code,” Richards said.
Ultimately, the time set aside for club homeroom, though it comes with its difficulties, is in the interest of students, giving them the autonomy to decide what would be the best use for that period, whether that be studying, socializing, or preparing for their next game.