Two service clubs at a Massachusetts high school will continue to operate separately, but membership in each will soon be open to both sexes following a vote of club members.
The new membership policies are intended to resolve a dispute at Longmeadow High School over access to the school’s Key and Keyette clubs, which until now have been re-stricted to males and females, respectively.
In response to a complaint filed by a 14-year-old female student, the state education department informed the school that the Key Club’s charter barring females violated state anti-discrimination statutes, according to Robert A. McKanna, the district’s superintendent. (See Education Week, Jan. 30, 1984.)
The vote to open the clubs was “worked on cooperatively by students, administrators, and advisers of the clubs,” Mr. McKanna said, and was not ordered by the school committee or the administration.
Students who want to join the clubs under the new membership guidelines may do so in March, a spokesman for Mr. McKanna said. But according to the superintendent, there is “some question if Keyettes International will accept boys.”
More than 200 students participate in Longmeadow’s Key and Keyette club activities, which include volunteer work and fundraising for charities, Mr. McKanna said.
