Daily eighth-hour meetings are nothing new for clubs like National Honors Society (NHS) and Freshman Mentor Program (FMP), as managing hundreds of members demands significant time investment. With hundreds of students to organize and events to plan, all the behind the scenes efforts from student leaders and sponsors are necessary to keep these clubs running smoothly. However, as the membership counts continue to swell, new challenges have arisen. 

Board responsibilities, though varying on a club-by-club basis, have offered students opportunities to control the direction and functioning of their clubs. Most clubs have a structured leadership system with an executive board made up of student leaders and a sponsor to oversee and provide guidance. 

In order to maintain the delicate balance of the supervisors and the student leadership and maintain the relationship sponsors have to give the students some space to manage things on their own. NHS sponsor Jennifer McBride has had to take chances when it comes to student decisions.

“We might be like, ‘I don’t know if that’s really going to work,’” McBride said. “When eboard members are passionate about doing something, we have to try, and maybe it’s going to be successful and it’s going to work great, and they’re going to prove me wrong, which then we can all use as a learning experience.”

As these clubs continue to grow, defining the proper balance between student and teacher responsibilities has become a point of contention. Despite sponsor efforts, it’s been noticed by students that not all of their ideas are being executed. In the past, students on the NHS executive board (eboard) would use the organizational skills they developed from Street Fest, the first major NHS event of the year, to carry out later events with greater independence. 

“We want NHS to be more student-led. I hope that in the future, it’ll go back to where it was when the kids were making the calls.” Brown said.

Not only does micromanaging apply to school clubs, but sports captains like Connor Lin ’25, feel it to be prevalent in sports teams as well. Student captains have traditionally taken the lead in organizing practices, but according to Lin, he has noticed that this dynamic between the coach and the players has been changing within the fencing team.

“I’ve noticed more teacher involvement lately,” Lin said. “It feels like they’re stepping in more when it comes to decisions about practice schedules or event planning—things that we used to have more freedom with.”

For both the captains and eboard members, rejection without consideration for new ideas can be disheartening though it is not always intentional. Other popular clubs like Student Council (StuCo) attempts to minimize animosity by prioritizing communication. StuCo has always had the goal of allowing the students to have the final say according to StuCo sponsor Jill Lipman.

“You’ve got to put trust in your student leaders,” Lipman said. “As sponsors, we’re always talking to each other, and then making sure, working with the student leaders, that, it’s that loose tight. ‘Here are the things that you can play around with and here are the parameters.’”

By being clear of the expectations, student leaders in the club will have an understanding of what to anticipate during their time in the club. By setting specific boundaries of responsibilities Lipman believes that it prevents members from stepping on one another’s toes and maintaining a healthy relationship.

Though sometimes a shift in leadership can be seen as necessary in the eyes of some club sponsors like McBride. Following rapidly growing membership in clubs like Future Business Leaders of America ( FBLA) and NHS, McBride finds that new challenges arise when dealing with logistics such as event planning and managing a large student body. 

“We had 483 members in FBLA, and it’s great that students are finding value in our club,” McBride said. “But it becomes very hard to manage and create experiences that are authentic and provide value related to business topics, whether we’re bringing in a guest speaker or we’re doing a community service event with planning for such big numbers which is why sponsors step in when they can to relieve the stress.”

Despite the occasional necessity of sponsor intervention with administrative work, McBride also tries to give the student board some independence in terms of planning. Even with some ideas that are a reach, students believe the sponsors should trust the process of the organization as well as the board themselves to exercise their creativity and leadership.

Previously, students played a significant role in choosing the leadership for the next year like in clubs such as NHS and debate. Now, however, an increasing proportion of students, like debate captain Deb Sahu ’25*, feel that sponsors are making more decisions.

“The issue is that sponsors aren’t always present in day-to-day meetings, so they don’t see the interpersonal dynamics,” Sahu said.

Sahu sees this could be an issue as students now feel more pressured when sponsors are in the room as they feel as though they are being judged based on their single performance rather than their contributions as a whole. 

Increased teacher involvement in the debate eboard selection process was a similar experience for the leadership of NHS where the leadership structure had evolved. In the past, NHS board had a larger role in appointing new board and this change had led to a new approach to this process.

“Even the eboard election process happened without much of our input, which was frustrating,” Brown said, “We were just completely out of the loop, which was not ideal.”

Students like Brown feel their input should be valued as they are the ones working day to day with the general members. However, eboard members were able to offer input about creating mentorship groups and the sponsors took this idea into account leading to more involvement.The mentorship groups surround a variety of topics such as presentations and small workshops  in which board members are able to offer more personalized teaching to general members.

According to Stevenson High School’s projections, the enrollment is projected to reach 4,900 students by 2030. With the continuous trends of increasing class sizes, it is likely that club sizes will continue to grow. The committees and mentorship groups are development, though graduating boards wish to see more of a change in the future.

“Our eboard is really close—we spend every day together, and we trust each other to lead,” Brown stated. “We’ve been given these leadership roles for a reason, and we should be able to make the calls.”

*anonymous sources