Trouble in the Club House

Extracurricular clubs, those mainstays of college applications and the teenage school social scene, are suddenly a matter of hot debate.

It’s not just the Christian clubs and gay-support groups that are making headlines. One school district--Orange Unified--is now reexamining rules for middle school groups, including service organizations, which help the less fortunate.

As students increasingly seek to form potentially controversial school clubs, more school districts are expected to rethink their club policies, one legal expert said. Among the questions: Is a given club related to the curriculum or outside a school’s course of study? Should nonacademic clubs be allowed at all? If not, should the school’s curriculum be changed to keep certain valued groups?

A recent federal court decision is expected to prompt a great deal of such soul-searching, said John C. Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at Chapman University School of Law in Orange. The ruling forced El Modena High School to open its doors to a gay-straight alliance while the club’s founders sue Orange Unified School District for trying to keep them out.

Many Orange County school districts already made their peace with the 1984 Equal Access Act, which prevents secondary schools that accept federal funds from picking and choosing among extracurricular clubs based on what might be discussed at meetings.

The law, intended to allow religious clubs to meet at public schools during off hours, is increasingly cited by gay and straight students who want to form extracurricular clubs too.

“I think every school district in the country is going to have to address their non-curricular club policy in light of this [El Modena] decision and others,” Eastman said.

“In very short order, a few months or a year, in every part of the country, schools will be facing the question of whether to eliminate all non-curricular clubs or simply accept the requirement of the Equal Access Act” and allow potentially controversial clubs to meet on campus.

In Orange County, school districts so far have come up with four possible solutions. Most either allow all nonacademic clubs or forbid them all. One school district has created a two-tiered system with official clubs and “equal-access groups” with fewer privileges.

Now Orange has eliminated nonacademic clubs at middle schools--but hasn’t formally decided which clubs stay and which go. Trustees are expected soon to consider a proposal to require parental permission, a minimum grade-point average and a limit on discussion of sexual activity at high school clubs.

The traditional school clubs model is found in such districts as Los Alamitos, Tustin, Fullerton and Santa Ana--schools that welcome all extracurricular clubs, from chess to Christian.

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Los Alamitos High--in which a Bible club, skateboarding society, scuba-diving club and a gay-straight alliance coexist peacefully--is a case in point.

The formation of the religious and gay-support clubs during the 1990s occurred with little fanfare, said Jerry Halpin, Los Alamitos assistant principal.

“The people who want to form clubs

that could be perceived as controversial . . . want to create a club that will be successful and have a place on campus,” he said. “Their goal was to be a success [rather than] get their names in the newspaper.”

This open-door policy also existed in Orange Unified until recently. The potential downside, Orange trustees learned, is that once an extracurricular club meets on campus, it’s tough to reject another club--even one that offends the beliefs of some parents or board members.

Some school systems have taken the opposite path, excluding all extracurricular clubs, as is done in the Saddleback, Capistrano and Placentia-Yorba Linda districts.

In Saddleback, the policy dates back nearly 20 years, to the first time a student proposed a religion-based club at school, said Supt. Peter A. Hartman. A number of people have asked for non-curricular clubs over the years, such as a black pride club and Hispanic club, but have been turned down.

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But as Saddleback has found, distinguishing a curriculum-related club from other groups can be dicey. A French or physics club is easy--they relate to a course of study. But what about service groups? Saddleback has decided that they are also curricular, because the high school requires students to perform community service.

“We try to keep our clubs, as best we can, related to the curriculum,” Hartman said.

High schools without extracurricular clubs aren’t dreary places devoid of fun activities, said parent Anne Thacher, who has two children at Aliso Niguel High School in the Capistrano school system. Her daughter is involved in honor societies and the dance team. Her son participates in athletics.

“I’ve never noticed it being a big deal,” Thacher said.

Nor does a lack of extracurricular activities necessarily hurt a student’s chances of attending college, said John Amdon, counselor at Foothill High in the Tustin school district, who also does private college counseling. There are plentiful opportunities for teens to get involved both inside and outside schools.

Still, Saddleback has been sued three times by students seeking access for Christian groups; one case is on appeal and is scheduled to be heard later this year. In addition, two students are now seeking to form a gay-straight alliance at Mission Viejo High School.

The Huntington Beach Union High School District has come up with a two-tiered system for handling clubs, said Fountain Valley High Principal Gary Ernst.

Activities that relate to the curriculum are called clubs, including the Spanish club, the economics club and the poetry club. Those that are not curriculum-related are called equal-access groups--including a gay-support group, a Bible group and groups for devotees of chess and Frisbee.

Fountain Valley’s 24 chartered clubs have a paid advisor and an account with the student government. They also get a free yearbook page and access to the intercom system. The 14 equal-access groups are not sponsored by the school but can use school facilities. A district employee must attend group meetings, but they aren’t supposed to participate. The groups don’t use the intercom and must pay for a yearbook page.

The system was created in 1992, when a group for gay and straight teens was proposed at Fountain Valley, amid much public outcry. The furor has since subsided.

The system isn’t perfect, but “it works fine for us,” Ernst said. “I believe in standing up for the rights of all kids, not just the kids who want to start Bible groups, but the kids who want to start support groups or community service groups. I can’t exclude them any more than I can exclude kids with green hair or kids whose skin is a different color than mine.”

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Kaeti Humphrey, the president of Fountain Valley’s Student Alliance (for gay and straight students) agrees that the district’s policy is a good one in theory. However, she thinks the distinctions drawn between clubs and groups are sometimes false.

“What happens is clubs with names like economics club are named that way so they can be full-fledged clubs, when they’re really service clubs,” she said. “[But] the Bible study club--when we study the place of religion and spirituality in world and American history or study the Bible as a work of literature--that’s ‘equal access.’ ”

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Staff writer Jeff Gottlieb contributed to this report.