Extracurricular activities should not take away from valuable school time

Speech and Debate’s recent visit to Lawson Middle School on May 24 poses a question regarding club promotions: have the worlds of high school and middle school suddenly combined into a single realm in which high school students may freely promote to an audience of middle school students?

I think not. Last time I checked, high schools and middle schools were still two separate entities in the California educational system.

Clubs and organizations should not ignore the clear distinction that lies between high school and middle school. It seems as if club promotions are on the verge of dominating all aspects of life, even those that lie outside the high school environment. Perhaps the old saying about Las Vegas should be adapted to say instead: “What happens in high school, stays in high school.”

This is the main difference between excessive and moderate promotion. On one hand, club promotions, such as Speech and Debate’s middle school visit, do have good intentions and play vital roles in spreading the word about the various opportunities offered by MVHS clubs. What makes these specific club promotions even better is that it shows that clubs are actively working to give middle school students early exposure to the diverse assortment of clubs and experiences at MVHS.

Nevertheless, these good intentions are hardly worth the class time taken away from middle school students. Extracurricular organizations need to understand that extracurricular promotions should stay outside of school hours, just as their own extracurricular activities do.

Schools should immediately place restrictions on school day advertising before the craze spreads to other clubs and organizations. Who knows, before long there might be an entire waiting list of clubs vying for valuable promotion time slots at middle schools around Cupertino. The craze would only worsen the feeling of inequality among different clubs because schools would be forced to decide which clubs have the opportunity to advertise and which ones do not, and decide what makes one club eligible for promotions and another ineligible.

Clubs that promote in middle schools may be working towards the noble goal of exposing middle school students to a wide variety of experiences at MVHS early on. However, this goal is not a valid justification for taking away middle school students’ class time. Let’s keep extracurricular activities outside the classroom.

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