By Whitney Kiepura
Executive Opinion Editor
On the second day off from “Snowmageddon” 2011, many students returned to the building for practice for clubs and activities. But while speech team and basketball team were practicing, a club was missing possibly the best chance of the decade to meet.
They missed it because the club doesn’t exist.
Which is why, especially after having 20-inches of snowfall, Prospect needs to restart its ski and snowboard club.
Math teacher Tim Will, the club’s last sponsor, explained that after his hip injury, he could no longer ski with the other students. He has had trouble finding a replacement because of the increased amount of paperwork for each trip
Before, students just needed a half-sheet of paper with an emergency contact and a parent signature. Now, the district requires a three-page packet of release forms for any student to go on field trips.
The added forms are a result of an incident from a few years back. The district thought that a group of students were drinking during the ski club’s longest trip of the season: a week-long trip to the Rocky Mountains.
“Kids would just go all over the slopes,” Will said. “If you have a group of 50 teenagers, you can’t follow each of them.”
Thus he felt he couldn’t guarantee the board that there weren’t any illegal activities going on. Because of this, more restrictions have been added.
For a kid who is used to sitting around all spring break as her friends sail off to the tropics, a trip to the mountains sounds like a fantastic alternative.
But because of a few dumb students, they have stopped this generation from having all the winter fun they had a chance to enjoy. With a change of a few rules, a vocal group of students and a willing (no pun intended) teacher, the club may once again exist.
This new version of ski and snowboard club would give students something positive to do on those long weekends before finals.
Senior Mike Woloch goes skiing eight to 10 times a season but knows how hard it is to organize a group of students.
“If there was a club, it would be so much easier,” Woloch said.
Just like the ski and snowboard club at Rolling Meadows High School, beginners would always be welcomed. Despite any level of athletic ability, the whole point of the club would just be to make Chicago winters a little less depressing.
Just like the abominable snowman, this ski club needs to rise out of the snow storm into existence.