• Students, teachers working to create new club at BAHS

    vdayWhen it comes to creating a school club, there are many hoops to jump through. It’s just protocol.

    According to high school support staff involved in the process, when a student is interested in creating a club, he or she must find a potential staff adviser to facilitate group responsibilities. From there, the student or group of founding students are required to approach the principal for further direction, which would include holding several interest meetings, creating bylaws and approving student officers to help run the program. When everything is given the stamp of approval at the school level, it then must be board approved.

    vdAnd that’s exactly what a group of students and involved teachers are working toward to help get Turning Point USA at Bellefonte Area High School. Led by staff advisers, math teacher Elizabeth Devinney and physical education teacher Josh Diehl, more than 20 students have been actively meeting to discuss goals, which include supporting fiscal responsibility, a free-market economy and open peer-to-peer fact-based dialogue.

    On Tuesday, they even met before school to create signs to hang in the school hallways showing support for veterans on Veterans Day.

    Turning Point USA is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2012, and annually hosts conferences on various topics throughout the year, such as the Teen Student Action Summit, Young Women's Leadership Summit, Young Black Leadership Summit and Young Latino Leadership Summit.

    *By Brit Milazzo, public relations director, BASD

  • Information from the students

    “Even though Turning Point at the national level is a more conservative organization, here at Bellefonte it is for both sides to come together with open dialogue on topics, so the conversation at school isn’t just one-sided,” said the group’s proposed President Noah Aberegg, a junior who started the process to form the club nearly a year ago. “We use online resources and nonbiased information, and meet about a variety of topics.”

    So far, Aberegg added that conversations included subjects such as Veterans Day, and “big tech” companies like Facebook and Microsoft. Other proposed student leaders are Molly McKee as vice president, Megan Marsh as secretary and Nolan Weaver as treasurer.