In an effort to reduce the number of inactive clubs on campus, ASB announced on March 26 that it will begin to review all current clubs as per a new rubric. If clubs do not meet certain criteria, they will be disbanded at the end of the school year.

The rubric covers new guidelines that aim to improve transparency between clubs and ASB to ensure that all clubs are meaningful to the Lynbrook community. All clubs were required to share club documents, such as meeting minutes, club constitutions, budgets and attendance records, with ASB by April 17.

Additionally, 50 clubs will be interviewed by ASB this year about how they contribute to the Lynbrook student body, and the remaining clubs will undergo the inspection next year. In an Inter-Club Committee (ICC) meeting on March 29, ASB specified that clubs will be evaluated on five factors: differentiation from other clubs, purpose, quality of events and meetings, member/student engagement and structure. The evaluation panel is comprised of ASB President Emily Zhang, ASB Vice President Diya Jain, the Community Link commissioners, ASB adviser Jason Lee and Assistant Principal Brooke Chan. If ASB notices problems in a club interview, it will continue to review the club; if a club passes, it can continue operating.

Bias in the review process is a major concern, one that ASB aims to prevent by including admin such as Chan in the interview between ASB and officers.

“My main role is to provide checks and balances and to make sure we’re not doing anything discriminatory, and there’s fair and equitable process throughout the school,” Chan said.

In the event that a club does not pass the interview phase, ASB will conduct surprise club visitations. Although clubs that do not pass are at risk of being disbanded, Chan assures that plenty of communication will take place between ASB and the club before that decision is made.  

The new club review process was created after concerns arose about the number of clubs on campus. In some situations, new clubs are unable to be passed due to a lack of resources. ASB hopes to rectify this by disbanding clubs that do not currently contribute to the community.

“The biggest thing is that we have over 90 clubs on campus,” said senior and ASB Vice President Diya Jain. “We’re running out of resources, and we’re running out of teachers to be advisers.”

Although the review panel can be held accountable, the same cannot always be said for the officers who are being interviewed. Often, the officers can slightly exaggerate their club’s true effect and membership, an issue that has been voiced by some club members. In order to combat this, ASB compares club documents with interview responses to verify the facts presented.

Although the reformed club review process may be a challenging adjustment for club officers, ASB hopes that the new guidelines can provide more transparency with clubs and uphold high standards for clubs on campus.