Clubs have always been a part of student life, but now students and teachers are having difficulty finding time for them.

“I don’t know if kids are too busy in church or if they have too much schoolwork,” librarian and Student Council adviser Sally Mroczkowski said. “It’s the same kids doing everything, and that bothers me. I think we have so much potential but we’re not reaching those kids.”

After school, sports, church, homework and jobs, there isn’t much time left for students who are interested to get involved with clubs.

“We had 30 to 40 kids that were interested (in Biology Club), but nobody had enough time to get it done on a regular basis,” Biology teacher and former Biology Club sponsor Shara Humpert said.

Students aren’t the only ones having trouble with clubs. Teachers are also feeling crunched for time when it comes to extra-curriculars.

“There’s not enough time in the day for a teacher to do the things that we need to do, so to take on a club is a lot of work,” Humpert said.

Another problem with clubs is the lack of knowledge of them, Mroczkowski said. Most Rider students are only aware of a small percentage of the clubs available.

“One of the biggest problems at Rider is communication,” Mroczkowski said. “Announcements aren’t working, (and) I don’t know how to get the word out to the kids. We’ve done different things like text messaging and Facebook, but you can’t use Facebook at school. I think it’s something we’ve got to solve to get the word out the kids.”

Teachers are struggling to find students other than the ones who are already involved to join their clubs.

“I usually approach kids that I think are good leaders and would make good representatives of the school, but those kids are the ones everyone else is recruiting too,” Mroczkowski said. “We need another group of kids to step up. I think we have a lot of good leaders out there, but they’re just not joining in.”

Mroczkowski said if students can’t find the time to join a club, they should speak to the sponsor.

“The goal is to get students involved,” Mroczkowski said.