How Online School Provides Opportunity for Social Involvement

The beauty of online school historically is that students benefit from the flexibility and the absence of distractions when they’re doing their coursework online and away from other students. But the truth is that students sometimes need those distractions! It’s important to provide students with the opportunity to interact socially with their peers. Social interaction is an integral part of mental and emotional health. Because of these reasons and more, we’ve started a few different clubs here at BlueSky to give students the social time they need! 

Social Clubs at BlueSky 

A few months ago, the BlueSky staff sent out interest forms to all BlueSky students to let them decide what clubs should be offered. After all, we are here to support students the way that they want and need to be supported. So we figured they would be the best candidates to determine our clubs! After tallying up all of the responses, there were a few clear winners. Now, in a few short weeks we’ll be starting the following clubs: 

• Gaming Club
• Book Club
• Art Club
• GSA Club (an LGBTQ safe space) 
• Baking Club 

We are so excited to be able to give students a space to express their interests, hobbies, and just themselves. In a way that is not intrusive or overwhelming, they’ll get to interact with other students who share the same interests. 

The goal of these clubs is to give students a safe place to socialize during covid and beyond. Our hope is that in the future these clubs can become a hybrid meeting place for students. Sometimes being online, and sometimes being in-person. Many of our students are used to traditional school with ample opportunities for social interaction, and we want to help them avoid feeling isolated during this time and enjoy their online learning environment. 

Lunch Bunch

Another way we are providing students with social interaction time is through our new “lunch bunch” initiative. This is a less structured way for students to connect on a weekly basis while they have lunch or simply just connect. We wanted to provide a way for students who didn’t necessarily have any interest in the club material a way to connect as well. 

This weekly lunch bunch is every Thursday and is run by one of our awesome staff members. Each week we choose a theme – so far we’ve done music, pets, and baking – and we share thoughts, recipes, ideas on that theme. This coming week of course we’re doing Valentine’s Day! This is a great way to have a low-pressure social interaction with students who want it. We have learned so much in the last twenty years, and we continue to learn about the best way to support our students. To learn more about BlueSky, feel free to contact us!