Word for "official school interest group"

Question

Is there a word that refers to an official interest group held in school where registration is totally optional but members once registered are expected to come? Official means the school keeps records and members who do not reach a certain attendance threshold would be kicked out.

I was thinking of school club but that seems to suggest that attendance is totally optional since clubs have the notion of come-and-go-whenever-you-like. On the other hand, the word association or organization sound too business-like.

Besides school club, is there a better word that has a closer meaning to official school interest group?

Answer 1

Looking at a few local schools' websites, I see they use the words club, group, team, organization, and society (for National Honor Society and Spanish NHS).

I don't know that there is a word that implies that membership in an extracurricular activity is contingent on attendance. I think that requirement is probably explained to the students when they join the club, group, team, organization, or society. (In my kids' NHS the inductees are required to attend meetings, or they are kicked out.)

Answer 2

Agree with JLG.

I think you're looking for too specific a word. A club or organization could have all sorts of requirements to obtain or retain membership. Attendance at meetings would be one. But a group could require members to pay dues, to follow to a code of behavior (no drinking, no associating with geeks, whatever), to avow certain ideas or beliefs (e.g. a religious or political group), a school group might require maintaining a minimum grade point average, etc etc. You couldn't expect there to be different words for every possible membership requirement or combination of requirements.

I think you just need to add a sentence stating the membership requirement. That is, you can't just say, "The Foobar Club is a X", where "X" means that attendance is mandatory. You'd have to say, "The Foobar Club, which requires members to attend at least one meeting per month to retain their membership ..."

Answer 3

How about society? It implies all of the above, IMHO.