Your classroom and lesson plans are ready, students have arrived, and the school year is finally underway. As everyone gets settled into their routines, there is still one big hurdle for staff, teachers, and families alike: setting up school clubs and organizations.
Decades of educational research have made the connection between student involvement in extracurricular activities and increased educational performance. As a private or charter school, these clubs and organizations make a big difference in retention rates – students who are more involved in their schools are more likely to return the following year.
Despite all the benefits, setting up and running these activities can be a logistical challenge for the teachers, parents, and staff involved. There is the need to work with schedules, keep lines of communication open, organize off-site competitions or trips – it can be a lot of planning.
Luckily, a learning management system can help streamline this process. Here are 3 ways how:
- Improving communication with parents and students – Sometimes practices are cancelled because of rain or the location of the meeting needs to be changed. Delivering that message to students across campus, and their parents, can be next to impossible on short notice. With an LMS, a single post to the group ensures that everyone gets the message they need, accessible with just a click.
- Keeping administration informed – With dozens of clubs at any one school, it can sometimes be difficult for administrators to stay on top of the day-to-day activities, approve trips, and oversee faculty. By using the group functionality in an LMS, administrators can check in on clubs periodically and ensure everything is running professionally.
- Transitioning from one year to the next – As one school year ends and another one starts, club facilitators may be reassigned and student enrollment in clubs and organizations is likely to change as student interests change. Luckily, a learning management system can save all club messages, calendar information, and important notes and documents, so the transition from last year’s leaders to this year’s volunteers can go smoothly.
Interested in learning more about the different types of school management software and how they can help your school better manage school clubs and organizations? Please download your checklist.