As the ’25-26 school year comes to a close, a new OH club, Club America, is on the rise. With this club officially opening back in January, membership numbers have steadily increased, and plans for the ’26-27 school year are already underway.
“It’s a place where [club members] can come and express their opinions freely,” Club America sponsor and AP Chemistry teacher Lesli Barron said. “It gives them a place where they know that their rightful presence is respected.”
The goal of the club is to allow students to have an outlet for civil discourse while learning more about present-day issues around the world.
“We want to make sure we keep it positive and nobody — really, I hate to use the word offended, but people get offended — we don’t want that to happen, of course,” Club America sponsor and Meteorology teacher Shon Keener said. “I think that’s important too for us as adults and mentors to kind of open this up for people who are 16 to 18 years old.”
Including civil discourse in American high schools is a key part of enabling students to address the issues they will face as citizens in the real world. Discussing issues from the local to the national scale also prepares students to use their voices and votes to make a difference in our government.
The club focuses on learning about a given topic using a series of researched areas, typically derived from the Turning Point USA website, then having productive discussions where students can share their opinions freely.
The meetings typically begin with a presentation surrounding a topic with a video explaining multiple pieces of information and then there are a series of discussion questions posed by the presenter.
The club sponsors also participate in the discussions providing opinions from their perspective as adults in the community.
“It’s [one of the only two] civic-engaging club[s] in the school,” OH junior Liam Piechowski said. “The turnout could be more, but I respect the students who show up, [and] the meetings have been successful in the way they are intended to be.”
With only one other club at OH that provides this outlet for civic engagement, the Youth and Government club where students create mock bills and debate them at the state capitol, Club America’s goal is to expand opportunities for students to show up, share their beliefs, and understand different perspectives in a safe environment, to enable them to be more effective citizens in the future.
Hello, I'm Roman Berger, and this is my first year with the 42Fifty Staff team. I am currently a Senior at Oswego High School, and plan on writing lots of articles related to the news or opinion sections. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
I love to read and write poetry, I'm a first year reporter in 11th grade. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
