Seems a good rate.
In the 2015-16 school year, 72.3 percent of students at Oak Park and River Forest High School took part in extracurricular activities.
This is better than the national average, which is 57 percent of students, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Still, OPRF officials would like to improve on that 72.3 percent. District officials say students who participate in extracurricular activities achieve better grades and have better attendance.
I believe these students also are more likely to have more friends. That’s another reason to participate in extracurricular activities. They give students an opportunity to make friends. For a teenager without friends is a sad sight.
I was involved in a few – too few I now believe – extracurricular activities when I was in high school. And I met most of my friends through those activities.
I was circulation manager for the school newspaper, which was a lofty title for my role as the guy who stuffed the paper into every student’s locker. And I also was on the swimming team and was a study hall monitor.
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Being involved in extracurricular activities also meant that the school’s tough guys didn’t want to have anything to do with me, except as an occasional victim if I didn’t step aside quickly enough.
You could always tell when they were approaching – those tough guys and their big-haired groupies – by the aroma of cigarette smoke that preceded them and announced to get out of the way.
I think it is safe to say that none of the tough guys was involved in extracurricular activities, unless slamming an honor student into a locker can be considered an extracurricular activity.
Perhaps, if somewhere along the line they had become involved in extracurricular activities, and school life and learning in general, they might have been better off. Hard to predict. In fact, two of the toughest of the tough guys in my school became suburban police chiefs. Go figure.
But I would bet most high school students who become successful in life are participants in extracurricular activities.
That seems to be how OPRF officials feel and why they are trying to get even more students involved in extracurricular activities.
Extracurricular activities aren’t extra at all. They are – or should be – an integral part of the high school experience.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.