With the new club year starting so are some new clubs. Last year and multiple years before that the high school had BIONIC club and SADD club that both had a mission to make the school a better place. BIONIC stood for Believe It Or Not I Care and SADD stood for Students Against Destructive Decisions. Mrs. Wyles-Herbert, Mrs. Ponter, and at one time Mrs. Eshbach all ran BIONIC, but Mrs. Ponter and the high school’s previous counseling guidance intern Mr. Pettit ran SADD. After a couple of years of running both clubs, the teachers decided to combine clubs to form one big club with the overall idea of helping the school and community.
The leaders of the BIONIC club are Mrs. Wyles-Herbert and Mrs. Ponter. Mrs. Wyles-Herbert was more in control of the club as she dealt with the new students at the high school as a school counselor. She explained that the BIONIC club was made as a way to help new students feel comfortable at our school and have help in understanding their way around the school. BIONIC and SADD combining helps reach the whole school and community by helping everyone feel comfortable and included. Many students who were originally in BIONIC really enjoyed helping new students and ended up joining the newly joined club to hopefully help out even more for the school.
The leader of SADD club Mrs. Ponter explained that SADD was a club that went off a mission that was about empowering people to make positive life choices but also the idea to help people feel that they belong. The club started about three years ago when the counseling intern at the time, Mr. Pettit reached out to staff to see if anybody was interested in helping run this idea of a club called SADD, and Mrs. Pointer volunteered to help. When SADD became a club, not too many people ended up joining as the name scared them off as it made them think it was negative. The small group of people who did join such as Nolan Varian, Caden Kristiniak, Annamarie Karasek, MacKenzie Yale, and Alicia Gilbert all had mainly big roles in the club and really helped with the club’s motivation.
After a while, both BIONIC and SADD clubs decided that joining together can make an even bigger difference for the school and help people feel included. The teachers responsible for making this club possible are Mrs. Eshbach, Mrs. Ponter, and Mrs. Wyles-Herbert as they combined the clubs to make Students Helping Students where all students are helped to feel included. Students can join from either teacher recommendations, signing up for the club, or by talking to one of the teacher advisors about joining.
