ESSO Board Begins Evaluating 60+ Clubs

The Exeter Student Service Organization (ESSO) board announced a club evaluation initiative this week, intended to support and improve clubs and to promote co-head accountability.

Starting this term, an ESSO board member will visit each club twice a term without prior notice, and score clubs on various factors such as attendance, planning and impact. If a club shows signs of disorganization and irresponsibility on multiple occasions, the board may ask the co-heads of the club to turn over and, in extreme cases, notify the College Counseling Office of these issues.

The initiative will help board members identify issues in different clubs in order to improve the program as a whole, senior and ESSO Co-President Ryan Xie said. “Having an evaluation system will let the ESSO board and community know what areas we can do better in, so we can strive to make ESSO as best as we can.”

Senior and ESSO Co-President Dawson Byrd noted that while many ESSO clubs have been facing challenges such as club head accountability or poor attendance, there was no systematic way to monitor these problems.

“With this new system, we hope to identify where clubs are falling short as quickly as possible so they can ultimately improve,” Byrd said.

When ESSO coordinators visit a club, they will assign a point value between one and four for the following categories: attendance, planning, meeting time, co-head accountability, atmosphere, emails, impact and conduct. In addition, children’s clubs will be scored on child attendance, childrens’ interest and impact. Off-campus clubs will be additionally evaluated on arranging transportation, interaction with the community and impact.

Based on point totals, club performance will be marked as “good,” “fair,” “needs work” or “unacceptable.” “Needs work” clubs will receive one strike, while “unacceptable” clubs will receive two. In both cases, club heads would need to meet with their coordinator and an ESSO advisor to discuss ways to improve their club. A “good” evaluation will remove one existing strike. If a club collects three strikes in a co-head cycle, co-heads may be switched, the club may be terminated and in severe cases, college counselors may be notified about the co-heads’ situations.

Director of Service Learning Elizabeth Reyes emphasized that the new initiative was intended to provide motivation and support, not to disparage or punish poor-performing clubs. “It’s pretty hard to get three strikes, because there’s a lot of help and guidance along the way,“ she said. “The evaluation system is supposed to be helpful and proactive, and to help co-heads do their job as best as possible,” she said.

Reyes noted that to make the evaluations most beneficial, in addition to visiting club meetings, the board will send out surveys to club heads, inquiring about ways to support the club as well as about their experience working with other individual co-heads.

Senior and ESSO Children’s Coordinator Ben Holderness said the board hoped to visit every club twice to ensure the opportunity for every club to present themselves most accurately and at their best. “ESSO wants to give every club the opportunity to show its best self,” he said. “Sometimes things happen that are beyond a club head’s control. The ESSO board either are or have been club heads, so we understand that. We want to make sure that one bad day is not the only way we can judge a club.”

The evaluation results of every ESSO club will be sent out to all the ESSO co-heads at the end of each term. Byrd hopes that this would incentivize club heads to put in their best efforts in keeping their club. “Hopefully, this kind of transparency will motivate clubs to work even harder.”

Byrd noted that when co-heads are clearly not putting in any effort to improve their club after receiving feedback and warnings, the board may reach out to College Counseling to ensure that club heads are not unfairly using the name of their position in their applications. However, he emphasized that this would be an extreme, worst-case response, not an automatic reaction to three strikes.

“We don’t expect to have to do this often because most ESSO club heads do care greatly about their clubs. But we do want to make it clear that contact with CCO is on the table,” Byrd said. “If club heads are clearly not putting work into their club then they shouldn’t be able to list that on their college applications.”

Upper and co-head of ESSO Gal Pals Annie Smaldone appreciated that the new initiative would encourage students to take responsibility in their ESSO participation. “It’s good to hold clubs accountable especially if it will help keep participation up throughout our student body and the greater community,” Smaldone said.

Similarly, upper Renee Bertrand, who is a co-head of ESSO soccer and ESSO Big Sib Little Sib, was glad that she would be able to receive external feedback and get original ideas about ways to further improve her clubs. “If there is something wrong that myself or my other co-heads didn’t notice, it’s nice to get feedback and see how we can improve,” she said. “As long as the board gives viable solutions to problems ESSO clubs might have, then I think it’s a good idea.”

Senior and ESSO Paper Airplanes co-head Olivia Lazorik said that because her ESSO club was a chapter of an external organization, she did not feel that the evaluations would impact the way the club would run. However, there may be discrepancies in the pressure put on different clubs. “I think this evaluation process is more critical for clubs such as children’s clubs,” she said.

In this vein, upper and co-head of ESSO Music Lessons Adam Tuchler thought that while his club would not be significantly affected by the evaluations, some clubs with lower attendance may face inevitable challenges. “It seems a bit harsh on some of the smaller clubs with only one to two attendees,” Tuchler said.

Bertrand reflected on her experience leading Big Sib Little Sib, one of the larger ESSO clubs with over 30 Exonian and 30 community children participants, and ESSO Soccer, a comparatively smaller club with around ten PEA students and five to seven children. While she acknowledged that attendance fluctuated in the smaller club, Bertrand said that both clubs were overall successful because children and PEA students seemed to find the experience rewarding. “In both clubs, all the kids and students are so passionate and want to be there,” she said. “As long as students and kids are happy and having fun, I think people’s ESSO clubs will be okay.”

Reyes emphasized that the purpose of ESSO was to serve not only PEA students, but the broader community, and that clubs needed adjustments depending on the needs of the surrounding area. Thus, she hoped that the evaluation process would provide answers to the question: “Is it fulfilling PEA student’s needs and the community’s needs? We want to make sure the clubs are quality, not quantity.”

Holderness hoped that the new system could hold all ESSO members accountable for their commitments so that PEA could provide the best possible service to the community. “I want to see an ESSO that best serves all the communities it interacts with. That service, however, is predicated upon ESSO clubs doing what they are supposed to do,” he said. “The ESSO boards wants to see all clubs do that work, and we believe that the evaluation system is an important first step.”

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