How Your School Website Can Help Students Start Their Own Clubs

Starting a club in school has many positive effects. It is a great way to further develop your passions, become involved with your community, and meet those who have similar passions as you. I personally started my club, “The Board Games Club” due to the excessive phone use I witnessed around my high school campus during nutrition and lunch. The goal of my club is to limit cell phone use and promote face-to-face connections. Through my club, I was able to develop my passion even more than I intended and partnered with an organization to teach young kids how to play board games. Founding a club can change a student’s life, and here is how your school website can help. 

The Forms on Your School Website

An important part of starting your own club is filling out the forms to do so. Most schools do not simply approve requests to start clubs and want more information on various aspects of it. Example questions that are seen throughout these forms are typically as follows: “What will this club do?”, “What is the goal of this club?”, “How will this club benefit the community?”, etc. In addition to answering these questions, you will need to have a teacher administrator who will let you use their rooms for meetings. This teacher will likely have to sign their name to confirm they agree to be the administrator. These forms should be located on the school website.

The best school website providers will actually offer digital forms on their website! Not only does this help reduce paper waste, but it will also make finding the form easier for students! Learn more about Edlio and explore all of our features!

List Already Existing Clubs on Your School Website

On your school website, there should be a list of clubs from the previous school year. On my school website, there are two lists, one for community service based clubs and one for interest based clubs. Each list has the club name, meeting times, president, teacher administrator and contact information for both. The list shows students what clubs already exist so they can have this knowledge when creating their own club to avoid overlapping ideas. It's likely these club will continue into your current school year, so if a club you wanted to created is already in existence, you might have to find a new idea. A great way to start a club is by doing so through an organization. Many social welfare organizations love to assist students in starting clubs affiliated with them. Reach out to local organizations to try and partner with them. 

If a club about something you are extremely passionate about already exists, you do not necessarily have to start your own club to be involved. By joining the club and showing those with leadership positions how passionate you are about their cause, it is very likely you will inherit a position for the upcoming year.

I knew I wanted to create my own club, I just did not know what I could do. It seemed to me that all the clubs I would be interested in founding already existed. However, this changed when I came up with an idea. Due to the influx of students I saw glued to their cell phone screens during lunch, I decided a club relating to some form of abstaining from technology use would be best, but I was unsure how to execute it. I did not want to make an “Anti-Cell Phone Use Club” or anything relating to that, because I felt that was hypocritical and that there were better solutions. I came up with the idea to promote real interactions rather than degrade cell phone use, and that is ultimately how I came up with the “Board Games Club”. 

The process for creating a club at my high school requires aspiring new club creators to attend a meeting at lunch where everything within having a club and applying to start one is outlined. The forms to request approval for your club were also given out, in which the questions asked were similar to the ones I stated above and required a teacher administrator to confirm through their signature. The teacher has to be present during meetings and let you use their room for them, so having a good relationship with them beforehand is preferable. 

Once I started my club, I realized I could do more than just monthly lunch meetings where members played board games. I reached out to an organization I had worked with in the past and asked if members of the club could come and play games with the kids among it. They were overjoyed with this proposal, and we set up dates in advance throughout the year. I had not only created my own club, but now I had a community service opportunity that was exclusive to it! 

Starting your own club can be intimidating, but I would really recommend trying. It is very rewarding to have a space where people with common interests can gather and develop relationships based on their passions. Your club can continue at your school even after you leave, and change the lives of the next students who belong to it.

My name is Caroline Bradkin, and I am a seventeen year-old high school senior at Palisades Charter High School. I am the Director of Communications for Palisades DECA, a program that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in various aspects of business. I am also the founder of the Board Games Club, a club dedicated to limiting technology use and teaching younger kids how to play games. I also cheer for my high school varsity cheer team and have been since my sophomore year. When I am not at school, I enjoy volunteering at NKLA, a no-kill animal shelter in Los Angeles. I am joining Edlio this summer through The Intern Project (TIP) as a marketing intern. After high school, I plan on pursuing a career in marketing or communications.