There are about sixty clubs at Western Albemarle High School, from chess and competitive math to Club Ninetendo and Ultimate Tic Tac Toe.
There’s also a chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by the late Charlie Kirk. It invites kids at Western Albemarle to meet during the lunch hour for talks about free speech, free market capitalism and limited government.
This student, a senior, says about 60 people are likely to show up.
“It’s probably one of the best attended clubs in the school.”
But how many are there for a free lunch?
“For the pizza? 70%”
And many, he says, come to argue with speakers like former Republican Congressman Bob Good and YouTube influencer Isabel Brown. Our source doubts many minds are changed.
“I think that’s the goal, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening.”
Instead, he says, students leave with the same world view – liberal if they come from a liberal household and conservative if their families are conservative. They might also leave a little richer thanks to the national group Turning Point USA.
“They will do a raffle at the beginning of every meeting, and if you get pulled you get a $50 VISA gift card.”
The Western Albemarle club hopes to provide larger American flags in classrooms but was told they could not put pro-life flags up in school. The district has been placed on a watch-list by Turning Point USA for its policy on transgender students and certain titles in its libraries – books the group describes as hypersexualized.
