Allen High School is home to many different clubs, but one in is the American Sign Language Club. 

The ASL club consists of 15 members on the books and 10 more that are very involved with the program. 

The club has reached many students over the years — Rachael Gadd, co-president of the ASL club, said it a fantastic experience.

“ASL club is a place where anyone who has taken ASL, wants to learn or is taking ASL, can come and do sign language,” Gadd said. “We do signs of the day where we teach a new sign every day, and we also do a lot of performances. We did a concert at a language convention and we are also going to sign the National Anthem at one of the football games. We will also be doing a float at the Christmas Parade this year where we will sign a few songs, which will be really fun.”

These annual events have become important to the club, specifically highlighting the Christmas parade as it is a big tradition for the Allen community. 

“My favorite thing we do is probably the Allen Christmas parade,” said Cindy Bell, ASL club sponsor and teacher. “The kids really enjoy making all the props and everything for the truck. We also have a father which in the last couple of years has really gone above and beyond for our club and helped us out quite a bit. [The kids] just like learning how to sign the different songs that we do, and it is just a fun event.”

The ASL club has brought students together in multiple ways, even if students joined for different reasons. 

“I’ve been in ASL since freshman year and I learned ASL as a little kid so whenever I had the chance to join it sophomore year I joined it, and again this year because I had so much fun,” co-president Natalie Jones said. 

 The ASL club members are urging students taking ASL or those who are interested in it to join the club. Gadd said it is an experience that everyone should have.

“ASL club is the most fun and nurturing environment for anyone who wants to join a club that can get them more involved with the high school,” Gadd said. “It’s smaller compared to some of the other clubs, but anyone can have a leadership position or just come and enjoy the meetings. We laugh a lot, we listen to music, and there are a ton of inside jokes — it’s just the best place to be after school.”

There are multiple opportunities for anyone to join this community, and there are leadership positions to work towards and friends to be made.

“We love having anybody join, we’ve had people join that have never even taken ASL and we will teach them what they need to know to perform with everybody usually there are a lot of kids in ASL Club who would love to teach somebody else sign language so they have a good time with that,” Bell said. “We have meetings every other Monday afternoon right after school until 5 o’clock, usually about 4:15 to 5, and we have extra practices if we have something coming up and we’ll try to work in some extra practices. If you’re in ASL Club you can see stuff on Canvas plus we have our school website and we also have various forms of social media. We have a Twitter account: @AHS_ASLClub, and we have an Instagram account: @AHS.ASLClub. So there are lots of different ways to be involved in the ASL club and we would always love to have more members.” 

Not only is the ASL Club important to the students but also to the ASL teachers and advisers. These teachers have spent their school years studying ASL so  they can teach students the same knowledge, and for them to see their students succeed is a big deal.

“I think that all the teachers that teach ASL love the language and that’s why we do what we do,” Bell said. “We think it’s beautiful and we enjoy learning and teaching new signs. There are new signs to learn every day, just because you have been teaching for 20 years doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to learn; there is always something new to learn. It’s always amazing to see students who came in knowing nothing about ASL and then see them signing pretty well at the end of the year.”