Clubs & Organizations

Commonwealth has a long tradition of student-run clubs and teams. They always enrich the atmosphere of social and community engagement at the school; occasionally they effect more substantial change in how the school operates. Some, like debate, model UN, student newspaper, and math team are long-standing clubs at the school. Other clubs, like feminism, game design, architecture, and philosophy, were created more recently to reflect growing student interests. Every year, new clubs are added to the list as students create spaces to discuss and engage in all their favorite subjects.

ACLU Chapter

Architecture Club

Chess Club

Commonwealth Cares

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

Debate Team

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

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.

Environmental Committee

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.

Evil Genius Club

Feminism Club

Game Club

Gender-Sexuality Alliance

History Club

Literary Magazine (Helicon)

Math Team

Math Team's purpose is to build a community around enjoying math. At some meetings, members of the team will give lectures about topics not usually encountered in math classes, such as combinatorics or number theory, including practice problems for the audience. At other meetings, members will pose interesting and challenging problems, and the team will work collaboratively to solve these problems.

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

Model Congress

Model United Nations (COMMUN)

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.

Newspaper

Philosophy Club

Politics Club

Robotics Team

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.

Yearbook

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.