Clubs & Organizations

The ACLU chapter at Commonwealth is dedicated to promoting and protecting the civil liberties of all peoples. Activities include phone banking for the census, working with the Student Immigration Movement to stop the deportation of high schoolers in Boston Public Schools, and discussing police reform. 

Architecture Club aims to explore various architectural topics from model making, drawing, the history of architecture here and abroad, while also having fun!

Chess Club meets once a week to play and discuss the game.

Commonwealth Cares is a student-led group of students in all grades who work together to offer interesting and meaningful community service opportunities to their peers. The aim is to provide a range of opportunities such that every student finds something he or she would like to participate in. In recent years, service opportunities have included preparing a monthly dinner at the Pine Street Inn Women's House in Dorchester; supermarket drives for Our Place; blood drives through the American Red Cross; refurbishing computers at the World Computer Exchange; volunteering with the Prison Book Program in Quincy; tutoring and other projects at Blackstone Community Center; working with children at the East Boston YMCA; learning to lead CPR training with the American Heart Association and many more.

COMMunity's goal is to make every student's Commonwealth experience fun and socially fulfilling by planning events and activities, such as school dances, movie nights, and trivia. 

Debate meets weekly to practice for conferences held by the Debate Association of New England Independent Schools, DANEIS, and hosted at schools in the Boston area; we attend five or six each year. Commonwealth's team participates in Parliamentary Extemporaneous debates, which are unrehearsed and done in teams of two. Most often, resolutions are in the form of a policy to be implemented by the US Congress. One two-person team defends the proposition, while a second team (representing the "opposition") attempts to refute the "government's" position. The debated propositions can range from the serious ("The US Federal government should cut off all funding for theoretical mathematics") to the goofy ("Superheroes should enjoy free healthcare benefits") to the goofily historical ("Be it resolved that Athens kicked more butt than Sparta.") Commonwealth also participates in other forms of debate (Interpretive, Impromptu, Public Speaking), and occasionally in informal scrimmages with other teams in the Boston area.

The club has nearly twenty members, of whom as many as a dozen go to each conference. Each Thursday, we conduct one full-length practice debate, and our officers work with our debate coach to provide constructive feedback to help students improve their argument formation and public speaking.

Diversity Committee brings together a group of students and teachers who meet to talk about identity, difference, and current events. Discussions and presentations at weekly meetings draw on students' own experiences, cultures, races, and backgrounds. Diversity Committee helps to create a community at Commonwealth that is open to dialogue on such issues as social justice, race, gender, and sexuality.

Members of the Diversity Committee attend the national Student Diversity Leadership Conference and the local AISNE Color Conference.

The committee also organizes and oversees school events, including Diversity Day, during which student-facilitated workshops and activities replace regular classes.

The Environmental Committee meets to discuss issues related to the local and global environment, green technologies, and related issues. They led the charge in switching Commonwealth to running on entirely carbon neutral power, and they recently tracking the school's emissions from food preparation, events, and school-associated travel. They also take a hands-on approach, coordinating the collection of recyclable and compostable materials at lunch and in bins throughout the school.

Perhaps our most intriguing student organization, the Evil Genius Club makes puzzle hunts for the school, which are "like escape the rooms except without the room." They are as fun to plan as they are to play. In their own words: "We are the evil geniuses that make heroes possible!"

The goal of feminism club is to create a safe space to discuss topics surrounding gender equality and double standards based on current events.

Game club, or Game Design, incorporates elements of game theory and game design into games of their own devising and creation.

The Gender-Sexuality Alliance ("GSA") aims to be a safe and welcoming environment for students, faculty, and staff of all genders and sexualities to come together, build community, discuss and improve the school climate for LGBTQ+ people, and engage with queer issues in our city & beyond.

History club is a club in which participants search for the foundations of modern society in the past, taking history on its own terms and developing a strong sense of the events, people, and places that have impacted our world through the ages.

Commonwealth's literary magazine, Helicon, is produced one to two times a year. It compiles student (and sometimes faculty) writing, poetry, and art. Student editors select what to include and design the publication.

Many members of the Math Team participate in competitions, where the topics discussed at our meetings frequently appear. We participate in the following competitions:

• Massachusetts Math Olympiad, a 90 minute exam with 25 questions, administered at schools across the state
• New England Math League, a series of six tests over six months, with six questions per 30-minute session
• The American Mathematics Competition series, which starts with a 75-minute exam with 25 questions, potentially leading to a three-hour exam with 15 questions, potentially leading to a nine-hour exam with six questions, and beyond
• Purple Comet, a team contest in which six people do 30 problems in 90 minutes with math and programming
• The Harvard MIT Math Tournament, an international competition with several rounds
• Greater Boston Math League, five-person team contests that happen once a month for 5 months in which top-scoring teams then qualify for larger contests
• The Mandelbrot Competition, held in a series of five rounds spread throughout the school year, with 7 problems in each 40-minute round

The Model Congress club sends about 15 students to Harvard's Model Congress Conference each February. During meetings, student leaders teach about Parliamentary procedure and the art of writing laws as they prepare to impersonate a member of Congress, take part in Supreme Court simulations, or engage in an historical re-enactment.

Founded in 2003, Commonwealth’s model UN club, COMMUN, has grown steadily: about forty students, including five club officers, now participate. Through lunch meetings, students prepare themselves to represent their assigned countries in committees that address a range of international issues. This year, we are attending MIT Model United Nations Conference, Boston College High School Model United Nations, and Concord Academy Model United Nations. Over the years, Commonwealth students have won many awards at these conferences, including Best Delegate, Outstanding Delegate (second place on the committee), and Best Position Paper.

COMMUN plans and hosts an annual Model UN conference for middle schoolers from Boston and surrounding areas.

The Commonwealth Chronicle, our school newspaper, is produced entirely by student writers, editors, photographers, formatters, and artists. Articles range from school news and faculty profiles to social and cultural trends and politics. It appears several times a year.

Simply put, philosophy clubs aims to learn and discuss philosophy. 

In Politics Club, students come together to discuss politics both domestic and international with new topics each week.

The Robotics Team is a venue for students to explore computer science, engineering, and applied physics through hands-on activities with electrical and mechanical systems. Students of all grades and experience levels are welcome and can participate in various ways.

Students can learn about standard microcontrollers with open-source programming and explore various topics including mechanics, electric circuits, and computer programming. The Robotics team has also participated in the inter-school VEX Robotics competition. The focus here is on a larger-scale robot that must perform per-determined functions with a given set of components. In both cases, students work as a team to design and build their ideas from scratch.

Commonwealth's annual yearbook is put together by a small but dedicated staff headed by an editor, a senior who, most often, was the previous year's assistant editor.

Commonwealth's yearbook differs from larger schools' in several ways. Though every student receives a yearbook, each senior has a full page, and creativity is encouraged. The book itself preserves the fun, offbeat feel of the School itself, rather than hewing to a predetermined format.