Lee County’s ARI Student Senators current project at Lee County High School is to reinstate our school’s club day. These are days that students can participate in various clubs that cater to an interest whether it is recreational, educational, or a national club. Club days were previously implemented at our school to promote student growth, but they were stopped due to attendance and behavior issues. Our mission is to improve and even expand on this idea.

Our plan to reinstate club days will mostly affect the student population. We want to make sure club days are focused around student growth and giving positions of leadership within that club. Examples of clubs that could be included are: arts and crafts club, Home Economics, a musicians club, and national clubs such as FBLA and HOSA. We know our community lacks opportunities and programs that many other surrounding counties offer and it is our hope that club day can provide LCHS students the same opportunity.

The planning for club days is still progressing; however, many of the final plans will come from administrators and teachers. They will have the final say on how these days will be implemented. From there, we want to give students the opportunity to sign up for the clubs they are interested in as well as forming new clubs that the students may ask for. For example, if students were interested in acting all they would do is create a petition and gain signatures from other students who are interested in acting and a drama club could be established.

To make club days successful, we plan to implement these days at Lee County High School focused around one word: incentives. We want to issue a new system revolving around incentives focusing on behavior, grades, and attendance.

For club days to take place, there are still several issues that must be addressed. One of these issues is attendance. Previously students would skip during this time and go to another club completely rather than the club they should be attending. This created a problem because teachers and front office staff couldn’t find students during this time. Another issue with club days was behavior. Along with skipping the club, student behavior took a sharp decline from regular school days. These behaviors included fights, arguments, social networking drama and being disrespectful to others. Although the majority of the students did not take part in this type of behavior all students were punished for it with the disbandment of club days.

Lee County High School’s club days were previously days that everyone was excited for and it is our goal that it is brought back in a more exciting and successful way!