Naperville Central’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) chapter was unable to attend their spring state leadership conference on Mar. 20-22 because of the high cost to attend the event.

Central’s HOSA chapter was founded by sophomore Amy Yang at the beginning of this school year. HOSA is a national organization that promotes careers in the health industry, develops leaders and competes in a variety of events, according to Yang. 

“This [is] the first year that HOSA has been at NCHS,” advisor Kimberly Smith said. “Because of that, we are [only] considered a club, because activities have to be specifically approved by District 203’s Board of Education.”

To become a board-approved activity, a club has to have been established for three years at both Central and at Naperville North. HOSA’s lack of recognition led to reduced funding.

“Because we are categorized as a club, we are not eligible for financial assistance from the district to pay for competitions,” Smith said. “What is normally very generously subsidized by the district when teams and activities go to compete at state levels, we [weren’t] eligible for, and that [became] an out-of-pocket expense. [It would cost] between 5,000 to  10,000 dollars in costs, which just isn’t feasible for students [in] a short window in time.”

Because they didn’t go to State, many were disappointed.

“I definitely feel bad for all [the] people who qualified for state, but were not able to go,” Yang said. “I just feel really bad about that.”

Next year, HOSA has plans to make changes so that going to state is financially possible. 

“Now that we know how much the costs [were] this year, our club fee [being] $5 was definitely not enough,” Yang said. “I think clubs like BPA, DECA, [and] speech have $100 fees. We are definitely going to hike up the fees, maybe not to $100, but $50 [would] be able to cover these costs. We’re also working on fundraising; we have some activities planned with that.”