App Club releases new app for club communication
On Jan. 27, the App Club officially released an app called ‘Newbury Park High’ for Apple products. Junior Harsh Karia, president of the App Club, wanted to create the app in order to allow clubs to more easily communicate with their members and the student body as a whole.
The goal of the app is to allow clubs to easily notify their members while also making it easier for students to keep up with what’s happening on campus. The app displays “the clubs and sports activities of the school into one central hub, so instead of checking your Twitter account or opening a bunch of emails, you can actually have all that information in one place,” Karia said.
App Club, advised by Michael Weingarden, releases a new app annually, but this year Karia strived to make an app that would specifically serve the student body. “The app has been something I’ve thought about since my freshman year … I was in a lot of clubs my freshman year and I noticed they have no coherent way to communicate between members,” Karia said.
“We talked about making an app each year for the campus … but we didn’t step up (during previous years) so I have to give Harsh a lot of credit. This year he stepped up,” Weingarden said. “He wanted to make an app people could use … and he did it.”
The administration recently paid an outside company several thousand dollars to develop an app for the school. The cost of this counterpart was $3,000, with the expense split between ASG and the administration.
“A lot of students aren’t on (the old app), and those that are don’t use it,” said Carly Adams, dean of activities. The old app’s only audience consists mostly of parents, according to Adams. The App Club hopes that this app will be more effective and better received than the school’s current app. They also hope that the app will encourage more people to join App Club.
Principal Josh Eby plans to replace the old app with App Club’s new creation. “I think (the new app) is going to work much better (than the old app) because the kids are going to have a more vested interest,” Eby stated. He believes the system of a collective notification center that can cater to club members and also allow the administration to remind students of late start days and other school events will receive better feedback. “I just think that’s the environment kids are in now,” Eby said. “They’re used to getting push notifications of things going on, and so it just automatically populates to your phone or device, versus having to go open something and look at it.”
With ‘Newbury Park High’ not only can administration send out updates, but students can choose which clubs they want to receive notifications from. Neither of these features were offered in the administration’s previous app.
“So my app and their app are actually very different. My app gives the students and their clubs and their sports a central hub for their content, and their app just pulls data off the school website,” Karia said. “So they serve two different purposes … their app in general is poorly designed and doesn’t do anything that well. So I think my app will get way more downloads and … be used more because it is thought out way more and designed very well.”
“I was a bit saddened when the administration basically paid a company to make an app when I feel like we have so much good talent here on campus,” Weingarden added.
Weingarden is confident that students will like the app and use it regularly. “During the process of discussing the development of this app I had no idea what was going to happen but I have to say … it has a lot of potential. So I am optimistic that people will latch onto this,” Weingarden said.
“I think it will get a good response from the student body because we have all the big clubs already on board,” Karia added. “If you are in the big clubs there isn’t really a reason not to download it and it is such an easy experience you will get used to it in a matter of minutes.”
The club plans to expand the functions of the app in the future if it receives a good response from the student body. “We are not stopping here. This is our first launch but we plan on updating it and adding more features to it that will be more of a use to everyone,” Karia said.
Students can download “Newbury Park High” here on the App Store. Clubs interested in participating should contact Harsh Karia at [email protected].
