ASB dissloves sub clubs

How and why sub clubs were disallowed

Staff Writer

Starting in the 2024-2025 school year, ASB has announced their decision to ban sub clubs at American High School. While there may be potential losses with the change, their disappearance may also be a necessary change to the club system. As the new structure takes effect, it is important to understand why and how this decision has been made.

Sub clubs are small clubs that fall under the umbrella of a larger club. As Alex Francavilla, a member of a sub club (10) said, “A sub club is just a branch of a main club that acts somewhat independently from its main club, being accepted by the parent club rather than the school itself. It might even have its own dedicated officer positions.”

Francavilla added how sub clubs have been undergoing a big change. “I remember some clubs created a bunch of sectors I thought were brand new clubs,” Francavilla said. “Some of them even sent follow requests to my Instagram account. But suddenly, all of them changed their names by removing the word ‘club’ after they got banned. For example, I noticed that the App Development sub club, an extension of the Engineering and Technology club, changed their names to just App Development after they were removed from the school.”

Although these sub clubs may provide increased diversity in terms of the range of niche interests available to students, the fact that they do not go through the admittance procedure for official clubs makes them objectionable to the school. According to Madyson Tran (12), the head of the ASB Clubs Committee, “Sub clubs were not really banned. As a matter of fact, they were not even allowed to exist in the first place due to their forged connection to American High School. These sub clubs have been advertising themselves as official clubs on campus, which is entirely false, taking away from the clubs that have gone through the grueling process to actually be accepted as American High School official clubs. Many official clubs began to mass accept sub clubs, which ruined the individuality of the clubs at American that we cherish so much.”

Tran also describes how sub clubs provide no purpose by circumventing the admission process, making it necessary for them to get disbanded. “Normally, clubs go through a strict process to be accepted. They must describe their past successes and contributions to the community, and future plans,” Tran said. “By bypassing these standards, sub clubs don’t demonstrate a promise and responsibility to improve the club community at American. Furthermore, once clubs are officially accepted by the school, they are now official representatives of our school, whether it be at competitions or conferences. Clubs not accepted by the school that continue to advertise as a part of the school mislead students and other organizations. Therefore, since sub clubs were never allowed in the first place, whenever we, the AHS Club Committee, saw a sub club advertising themselves online or on campus, we would tell them that they were not allowed to continue promoting themselves on campus or online as a part of American High School.”

As the decision to ban sub clubs is being enforced, the breadth of extracurricular involvement has been fundamentally changed for students. “Overall, I think that for students, the banning of sub clubs is a bad change because it limits the educational opportunities that [students] can pursue,” said Maurya Mopuri (10). “As a member of the Quiz Bowl sub club, I don’t want to see it disappear since I think that it’s a great subject to pursue.”

Caption: An empty classroom symbolizes the removal of sub clubs from American High School. With no more sub clubs, former members and officers are forced to find new clubs and extracurriculars. However, this change may be necessary. According to Madyson Tran (12), apart from skipping crucial steps to be accepted into the school, “Sub clubs may also become a liability issue should anything happen regarding these unofficial clubs.” (Photo Credit: Ryan Liu (10)).