Student Groups & Clubs

Student leaders: Kalika Ivaturi and Will Friebel
Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: Amnesty International is a global organization focused on advocating for human rights. Our club focuses on advocating for humans rights and raising awareness, especially for campaigns that don’t get talked about as much such as asylum seekers, indeginous peoples, freedom of expression, and more.

Student Leaders: Callie Kaplan, & Liam Taylor
Faculty Sponsor: Margaret Bahe
Mission: To educate the Burroughs community about anatomy by participating in (or watching) hands-on dissections of various specimen.

Student Leaders: Amaan Banga, Callie Kaplan & Ria Mirchandani
Faculty Sponsor: Deena Goran
Mission: To allow students to learn about potential careers and opportunities to further their understanding of different areas of the biomedical sciences through speakers.

Student Leaders: Amaan Bang, Matt Christenson, Ethan Jick & George LaVigne
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Holmes
Mission: To educate Burroughs students on business ideas and topics.

Student Leaders: Annie Calhoun, Sydney Starks & Lizzie Wagner
Faculty Sponsor: Mike Gesiakowski
Mission: To provide enrichment for students beyond what they can experience within the classroom and expose the greater JBS community to the ceramic arts. This club will provide students with the opportunity for further artistic achievement through planned club events such as Empty Bowls with Montgomery Plan, field trips to museums and local ceramic artist's studios, and to build camaraderie with fellow student artists.

Student Leaders:  Reilly Dillon, Reza Mofidi, Jacob Plax & Andrew Wang
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith
Mission: To teach and foster the love of chess and to compete in the Gateway Chess League.

Student Leaders: Arushi Katyal & Sofia Kisner
Faculty Sponsor: Marni Dillard
Mission: To share the Classics with the wider school community and provide students of the Classics with enriching activities.

Student Leader: Eli Front
Faculty Sponsor: Rob Bisch
Mission: To provide a place for exploration and understanding of computer science topics for the student body.

Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith
Mission: To inform the student body about current events and to discuss the issues of the day.

Student Leader: Ethan Jick
Faculty Sponsor: Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: To fuel interested students with the necessary conversational, public speaking and self confidence skills for one's future endeavors through the art of debate.

Student Leaders: Eva Kappas, Milah Padda & Ava Teasdale 
Faculty Sponsors: Deena Goran & Tracy Walther
Mission: To foster an appreciation for the environment by organizing events within and around the JBS community and helping JBS to become a more sustainable community.

Student Leaders: Sea Gira, Shayfer Huitt, Phoebe Martyn & Grace Moore
Faculty Sponsor: James Lowe
Mission: To watch films of cultural, historical, or social importance and discuss their impact and style.

Participants: Applications due in October 
Faculty Sponsors: Shannon Koropchak & Andy Newman
Mission: To promote the debate of and collaboration around complex international issues in accordance with the United National and the Sustainable Development Goals. We hope as well to work toward the resolutions of these lofty goals at the local level.

Student Leaders: Julius Hollander-Bodie & Chris Perez
Faculty Sponsor: Jason Taff
Mission: To allow high schoolers to do math in a unique way outside the classroom via math competitions and general exploration.

Student Leaders: Teddy Hollander & Sameera Rao
Faculty Sponsors: Carrie Dodson-Ching & Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To ensure an understanding of Model United Nations (MUN) among 7th and 8th graders.

Student Leader: Phoebe Martyn
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Lewis
Mission: To teach students how to be an attorney in court, and to prepare a team to compete in the Missouri Mock Trial Tournament.

Student Leader: Yara Levin 
Faculty Sponsors: Shannon Koropchak & Andrew Newman
Mission: To find currently-existing initiatives at JBS and the outside community and connect them to the Sustainable Development Goals set forth by the UN. 

Student Leader: Lucy Von Rohr
Faculty Sponsor: Martha Keeley
Mission: to give the opportunity for students to learn and hear from speakers about infectious disease and public health. The goal of this club is to get those interested and curious a chance to learn about a field of science that helps the world. It is a club dedicated to learning about a new infectious disease every meeting with the help of guest speakers to learn about different infectious disease’s history, biology, impact, previous epidemics and pandemics, current treatments, and for discussion how the disease is related to modern day and how humans should have responded or how they will in the future.

Student Leader: Arushi Katyal
Faulty Sponsor: Allen Chung
Mission: To participate in the FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics competition. FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded to inspire young peoples' interest and participation in science and technology. It provides unique opportunities for students to apply science, technology, engineering and math-related concepts and skills by competing in the FTC robotics program.

Student Leader: Sammie Lee
Faculty Sponsor: Jon Bang
Mission: To have students engage in a role-playing activity based on the operation of the United Nations by drafting resolutions, discussing assigned topics on current world events and voting on proposals. Participants will hear guest speakers and become knowledgeable about writing resolutions and planning debate procedures. Students from St. Louis area schools engage in three sessions of this Model UN at which time resolutions are heard, debated and voted on.

Student Leaders: Sarah Asher, Hana ILahi, Summer Levin & Ava Teasdale
Faculty Sponsor: Jamie Wagner
Mission: To engage students in activism surrounding climate and racial justice.

Student Leaders: John Butka & Sophia Park
Faculty Sponsors: Dan Barton, Eric Knispel & Kerri Rowe
Mission: To engage students in hands-on engineering and to increase environmental awareness.

Student Leader: Ria Mirchandani
Faculty Sponsor: Drew Battles
MIssion: To promote the exchange of ideas and stories in the JBS community through engaging talks, meaningful discussions and new learning opportunities.

Student Leader: Yara Levin
Faculty Sponsor: Donya Allison
Mission: To parallel the UNICEF mission to empower youth to be effective global citizens and help the world's most vulnerable children. JBS UNICEF will educate, advocate and fund raise to help at-risk children around the world.

Student Leaders: Thomas Dobbs & Phoebe Philip
Mission: To discuss conservative views and issues both specific to JBS as well as the US and world and to possibly present and help the JBS community get a better perspective on what we believe. We will hold meetings with both specific and open discussion topics. 

Student Leaders: Vivienne Lu, Anyi Sun
Faculty Sponsor: Julie Shimabukuro
Mission: To increase awareness of Asian culture, country by country, through the study of the history, language, art, religion, music and food, and to help students gain a better understanding of how race and ethnicity inform identity.

Student Leader: Lizzie Wagner
Sponsor: Nicole Randall
Mission: CISI aims to serve as a space in the Burroughs community in which students can learn to have meaningful conversations about identity and diversity-based issues, and provide a safe, low pressure environment for discussion.

Faculty Sponsor: Martha Fischer
Mission: To instill the joy of living through the advancement of community. We believe that it is an integral part of education during these formative years to cultivate character and compassion by productive interaction. Welcoming all, regardless of background or opinion, Diversity E.T.C. strives to serve as a clearinghouse for ongoing, open discourse, with the goal of encouraging affinities within the Burroughs community. Functioning to enhance learning through formal meetings, informal conversations and planned activities, we are always striving to promote awareness and enrich consciousness.

Student Leader: Temi Ogunremi
Faculty Sponsor: Babeth Dyer
Mission: To educate and engage the John Burroughs community on the breadth and beauty of Francophile history, culture and politics.

Student Leaders: Madeline Buchowski, Leila Fischer & Eesha Jasti
Faculty Sponsors: Ashley Edgerton & Jessica Hunt
Mission: To promote gender equity, spread awareness and work to create solutions to prevalent gender issues in our community through public outreach and events within Burroughs.

Faculty Sponsor: Pete McKeown
Mission: To deliver transformative educational programs that foster global pluralism, collective leadership and environmental care that help students and teachers become fully engaged citizens of the world.

Student Leaders: Isabel Cepeda, Cece Fernandez & Maisie Zipfel
Faculty Sponsor: Maria Cohen
Mission: To promote the study and appreciation of the culture of Spanish speaking countries through fun activities.

Student Leader: Katie Gelfman 
Faculty Sponsor: Tim Baker
Mission: To inform the student body about Jewish culture and to create a safe and welcoming community for those who want to learn more.

Faculty Sponsor: Sarah Hasselman
Mission: To provide a place where people of all different backgrounds and identities can come together to have a safe and constructive conversation.

Student Leader: Yara Levin
Faculty Sponsor: Jamie Wagner
Mission: The Political Action Club will focus on developing the agency of students to affect positive change through the political process. Students will learn how to exercise advocacy actions such as writing politicians and decision-makers, calling the offices of these leaders, and lobbying these leaders directly in-person. The Political Action Club is open to individuals across the political spectrum to learn these skills and will help train groups and other clubs interested in political advocacy.

Student Leaders: Evan Harris, Jacquelyn Harris  & Molly O'Brien
Faculty Sponsor: Andranique Harrison
Mission: To support discussion of issues relevant to the intersection of race and socioeconomic status, engaging in "revealing" activities that highlight inherent privilege, or lack thereof, by virtue of one's race of socioeconomic status.

Student Leaders: Will Friebel, Sofi Kisner & Brice Shearburn
Faculty Sponsors: Ellie DesPrez & Sarah Hasselman
Mission: To represent the LGBTQIA+ community in an effort to increase awareness of and safety for Gender and Sexuality Minorities (GSM) in the Burroughs community. This is done by spreading information about various gender and sexuality identities through meetings, assembly speeches and events, as well as promoting response to any issues which may infringe upon the rights of those who identify as a GSM.

Editors-in-Chief: Meghna Kommu, Erin Lamping & Uma Rayani
Faculty Sponsor: Daniel Harris
Mission: To create a publication in the 'zine style, focusing on creating meaningful and respectful conversation among members of the JBS community on the topics of diversity and inclusion. It is a publication that is submission-based and includes all types of artistic expression.

Student Leaders: Meghna Kommu & Sahana Madala
Faculty Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: To promote religious literacy on campus and challenge assumptions on religion through talking about experiences and engagement with other clubs.

Student Leaders: Evan Harris, Ellie Strahorn & Liam Taylor
Faculty Sponsor: Sally Kilbride
Mission: To aid and ease the navigation of kids under twenty-one through the world of middle/high school and the stress and/or mental obstacles that may be encountered along the way.

Student Leader: Bradley Schenck
Faculty Sponsor: Davey Desloge
Mission: Our mission is to give students with a passion in sports the opportunity to write about the sports that they enjoy, as well as inform the JBS community about its sports teams, upcoming games, etc.

Editor-in-Chief: Liam Taylor
Faculty Sponsors: Mike Gesiakowski & Sorsha Maness
Mission: To have students work together from the beginning of the school year through March to produce a traditional yearbook called the Governor. Under the direction of the senior editors-in-chief, students are responsible for page layout, design, writing, editing and photography. Students work together during open meeting times and individually to complete these tasks.

Editors-in-Chief: Teddy Gillanders & Evan Wang 
Faculty Sponsor: Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To humorously engage the student body.

Editors-in-Chief: Eva Kappas & Teresa Jiang
Faculty Sponsor: Andy Chen
Mission: To promote visual arts and creative writing while collecting pieces for the annual publication of the student literary magazine, The Review. We host regular meetings to review nominations, which are open to all grade levels. In addition, The Review sponsors the annual Review Preview, a music and spoken word festival.

Editor-in-Chief: Cate Kiley
Faculty Sponsors: Ellie DesPrez, Jill Donovan & Shannon Koropchak
Mission: To nurture and help showcase the creative writing and art of middle school students. Participants support each other as writers in after-school creative workshop gatherings, and help to edit and lay out the literary and art magazine Works in Progress: An Anthology of Middle School Creative Work at Burroughs.

Editors-in-Chief: Sara Cao & Ava Teasdale
Faculty Sponsor: Sarah Hasselman
Mission: To be a beacon of independent journalism and critical thinking at Burroughs. Our members will ask questions to spark candid, respectful conversations about topics both within our school and the global community and report about them accurately. We will not stop in our pursuit of objectivity and will be the microphone that amplifies student voices.

Student Leaders: Arna Gowda, Natalie Richter & Sydney Williams
Faculty Sponsor: Imani Harris
Mission: To welcome students from any grade who have an interest in being a leader and friend to students who attend Aim High. Our mission is to provide assistance and leadership through monthly planned activities.

Student Leader: Natalie Richter
Faculty Sponsor: Donya Allison
Mission: To educate the JBS community about animals in need and help animals in our community.

Student Leader: Elizabeth Clarke
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Nicholas
 

Student Leaders: Ayah Hamed & Yara Levin
Faculty Sponsor: Marni Dillard
Mission: To provide assistance to people living with ALS throughout the St. Louis area. While in the homes of patients, students perform household chores that are difficult for people living with ALS. The club also raises money to help fund ALS research and participates in community-wide events that raise ALS awareness.

Student Leader: Abby Edwards
Faculty Sponsor: Peter Tasker
Mission: To support basic human needs, projects and organizations around the world through fund raisers and raising general awareness.

Student Leaders: Margot LaVigne, Owen Sheehan & Virginia Shuff
Faculty Sponsor: Alex Wu
Mission: We will be educating the Burroughs community about what it's like to have cancer and to go through the several different treatment processes. We will fundraise for pediatric cancer research.

Student Leaders: Isabelle Cepeda, Meghna Kommu, Shivani LaBore, Simran LaBore, Sahana Madala & Liam Taylor
Faculty Sponsor: Laura Fogarty
Mission: To enable Burroughs students to help people in other countries by providing micro-loans to assist individuals around the world in growing small businesses. We focus on supporting single women building their independence. Burroughs students will raise money, then choose the people, causes and businesses they want to support.

Student Leader: Vanessa Polk
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To serve as an interest group for students in the Burroughs community who like to create things, to increase interest and awareness about the MakerSpace and provide educational sessions and to provide disadvantaged students from the broader St. Louis area with the the opportunity to access the Burroughs MakerSpace.

Student Leaders: Each activity is chaired by a different set of student leaders
Faculty Sponsor: Meghan Rathert
Mission: To promote social consciousness, cultivate relationships, foster empathy, and inspire lives of civic responsibility by compassionately engaging with the greater St. Louis community through volunteering and service

Student Leader: Jack Dreeson
Faculty Sponsor:  Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: Protecting Our Patriots is a club devoted to assisting both active duty and military veterans by providing volunteer work and donations to trustworthy organizations.

Student Leader: Boom Cummings
Faculty Sponsor: Pete McKeown
Mission: To raise awareness for important issues through sports.

Student Leader: Brice Shearburn
Faculty Sponsor: Aaron Dowdall
Mission:  START is a program of Welcome Neighbor STL that aims to give teens the opportunity to contribute to and support St. Louis' diverse refugee community. The club will work towards its objective of aiding refugees in the STL region through volunteer, assistance and fundraising activities.

Student Leader: Finley Desai
Faculty Sponsor: Tim Baker
Mission: To help strengthen the Burroughs community at all levels through car shows and events.

Student Leader: Gabi Brent
Faculty Sponsors: Catie Haveman, Michael Havemen
 

Student Leaders: Ryan Fogarty, Lauren Inazu, Jack Parsons, David Rich & Rafe Rosario-Blake
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To serve as a welcoming environment to promote awareness and increase participation in board games and a variety of other different media that are less popular. We strive to be inclusive in our activities, and, above all else, to simply have fun.

Student Leaders: Gavin Daengsurisri, Clay Edelson & Dalton Harold
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Saloman
Mission: To provide the student body a form of extracurricular entertainment, to compete and practice together, and be part of a team, as well as represent John Burroughs School in the esports community.

Student Leaders: John Cordia, George LaVigne, Charles Martin & Owen Sheehan
Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Estes
Mission: To have fun while supporting the community.

Student Leader: Molly Magarian
Faculty Sponsors: Jessica Hunt & Kelly Sherman
Mission: Queer Reads will be an all-school book club focusing on queer novels (and graphic novels), mostly own-voices books (written by LGBTQQIAA+ people). We will have thoughtful discussions about the themes and characters of the book, as well as discussing larger issues the book brings up. You do not have to be a member of the LGBTQQIAA+ community to be a member of the club - it’s open to everyone regardless of identity or sexual orientation!

Student Leader: Boom Cummings
Faculty Sponsor: Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: To create unity throughout the student body, increase school spirit and expand student involvement within school sporting events.

Student Body President: Andy Zhang
Faculty Sponsors: Kate Grantham & Meridith Thorpe
Mission: To direct student organizations and help establish an understanding between students and other branches of the JBS community. It creates an atmosphere and a forum for the open discussion of school problems. Congress helps define and implement the JBS philosophy and is the main student vehicle to initiate change within the school. Past activities include the Holiday Drive for the Hundred Neediest Cases, Dance Marathon, Movie Night, Commons Café and Field Day. All meetings are open to the student body. The Student Congress is comprised of the president of each class, Chief Justice of the Student Court, Student Body President and an appointed secretary.

Chief Justice: Teddy Gillanders
Faculty Sponsors: Pete McKeown & Kate Ward
Mission: To hear cases arising from alleged violations of school rules. The Student Court is composed of ten students, including a chief justice, two seniors, one junior, one sophomore, one freshman, one eighth grader, two bailiffs and the court secretary. The Student Court offers the community unique opportunities for learning and developing fostered responsibility. Throughout the school year, the court meets weekly to discuss and process more than 500 cases and demonstrate some sophisticated judgments and creative punishments.