The Kennewick School Board will revisit its decision to limit the privileges of noncurricular student clubs.

The board Wednesday voted 4-0 to again take up policy 3560 at its next meeting, which is Sept. 28. Board member Heather Kintzley was not at the meeting.

The board on Aug. 18 had approved the policy, which keeps noncurricular student clubs from using school yearbooks, newspapers and the public address system to let students know about club activities.

The policy also kept noncurricular clubs from having paid advisers or access to Associated Student Body accounts.

Since last fall, the school board had discussed how to better provide for gay-straight alliances in Kennewick schools. Such student clubs seek to provide safety from harassment or bullying at school to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender youth.

The district had been in violation of federal law by granting different levels of access to school facilities to various student clubs.

The new policy brought the district in line with federal rules -- by limiting all noncurricular clubs equally.

The decision took away privileges from student clubs who organize volunteer food drives and help disabled children at school, for example.

"You wouldn't believe how many emails I've gotten on this," board member Kathy White last week told the Herald.

Students showed their disagreement with the decision through a silent protest at the meeting. About 30 members of different student clubs -- Key Club, Buddy Club, National Honor Society and the gay-straight alliance -- from Kennewick high schools attended the meeting wearing small paper stars.

An invitation circulated on Facebook last week specifically asked students who attended the meeting to be respectful and quiet during the meeting. And they were.

One of the organizers of the silent protest was Courtney Berna, a senior at Kennewick High. She is in several student clubs, none of which was affected by the new policy, she told the Herald. But she wanted students to come and show their solidarity, because "everybody needs a place to belong," she said.

Alonso Ponze founded a gay-straight alliance -- or GSA -- at Kennewick High School this spring. He said the policy "felt like discrimination" to him. "We all know it's about the GSA," he said.

A lot of kids at school are upset about the new policy, Berna said.

That appears to include those active in the Buddy Club, in which students team up with special-needs kids to eat lunch with them, go to the movies and generally make them feel welcome at school, said Courtney Hibbs, a member of the Kennewick High club.

The Buddy Club now can't make announcements at school.

"Nobody knows when Buddy Club starts this year," Hibbs said.

The buddy peers, as they are called, meet on certain days to take special-needs kids to the movies. "This year, we don't know when those times are," Hibbs said.

Last year, each special-needs kid was teamed up with five to 10 peers. This year, some kids don't have a single peer, which Hibbs said was because the club couldn't communicate to students.

The Key Club, an offshoot of Kiwanis International in schools, also is affected by the policy.

"Without advertising we can't get the word out and then nobody knows when our service projects are," said Alisa Mason, president of the Key Club at Kennewick High.

Their adviser, who no longer is paid for helping the students, told club members to spread information by word of mouth as much as possible, Mason said.

There seems to be some confusion about the student club accounts. Mason said there was talk about the Key Club not having access to all of its own money, even though much of that money comes from Kiwanis, not ASB funds.

"We just want to get back to what we had last year," Mason said.

"It's not like listening to (GSA) announcements is going to hurt anyone," Hibbs said.

One club on Wednesday got back everything it had last year and then some.

The National Honor Society from now on is classified as a curricular club, which means it enjoys the same privileges as math club or French club, for example. That includes paid advisers and access to all school communications.

Also Wednesday, the school board met at Southgate Elementary to dedicate the newly renovated building. The school reopened for this school year after a yearlong remodeling project.

-- Jacques Von Lunen: 582-1402; jvonlunen@tricityherald.com