The new Constitution Club was developed by Keith Broaders, a retired teacher with 20 years experience in Northern California and Hemet High School’s U.S. history and government teacher John McKelvey, who has taught at the school for the past 12 years. “Our students in the club want to go back to the basics of our founders and the core of what our country is founded on,” McKelvey said. “This is our inaugural year and we’ll make a few mistakes. It’s just beginning.”
The new club currently has about 12 students signed up to meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch and after school for an hour in McKelvey’s classroom. The school’s “club rush,” will be held Sept. 25 and 26 where they are hoping to gain more students.
“I don’t mind opening up my classroom at lunch and after school,” said McKelvey, a former coach, who also runs the school’s chess club. The goal of the new club is to provide students with a “deeper understanding of the Constitution,” he said.
“Keith’s going to come and do guest speaking,” McKelvey said. “Keith would like to grow this to include all the schools in the Hemet Unified School District.”
McKelvey said he was impressed with Broaders passion for the Constitution without becoming partisan and favoring a certain political party. All of the materials for the new club are provided by the National Center for Constitutional Studies (www.nccs.net). The Constitution Club’s educational materials teach direct from the Constitution of the United States and from literature by the nation’s founding fathers, Broaders said. The students in the club will all memorize the bill of rights and other important documents so they will be able to quote the texts in conversations, Broader said.
The Congress designated Sept. 17 of each year as “Constitution Day,” to commemorate the Sept. 17, 1787 signing of the Constitution of the United States. In a fundraising program, the club students sell small pocket guides to the Constitution for $1 to raise money for the club activities and scholarships, Broaders said. This is approved by the Associated Student Body for Hemet High School, McKelvey said.
Both men said they believe the current political landscape is sacrificing American children’s futures with the debt crisis. They also said they will keep their own political leanings private and not sway the students with their own personal opinions.
“I want my students to have no idea who I’m voting for in elections,” McKelvey said.
Broaders moved to Hemet two months ago from Murrieta to launch his educational programs and said he felt the Valley had more fertile learning ground for development. Broader’s mother was born in Hemet in 1921 and he said it feels like returning home.
“I moved here because Hemet was a better place to live for teaching and preaching the gospels of freedom,” Broaders said.
A $2,000 scholarship program has also begun named after Dr. Joseph Warren, who Broaders calls a “forgotten hero” of the early United States. Broaders started a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization to help collect the funds to provide for the scholarships. The money given to the top 10 percent of the new club members is not restricted on how it can be spent.
“It’s a grant to use for whatever they want; it’s their money and we believe in personal responsibility,” Broaders said.
The goal is to have an educated electorate who can pick and choose wisely when they elect a leader to office at all levels from the city council, school boards, and state and federal offices including the president of the United States, Broaders said.
“If the American people want wise leaders they need to wise up,” Broaders said. “If the kids are smarter with their votes we’ll get good statesmen. We want kids in America to learn to be critical thinkers.”
For more information, visit www.constitutionclubusa.com or call Broaders at 282-3271. John McKelvey can be contacted at [email protected].