Turning Point USA Finds Uneven Welcome at Staten Island Catholic Schools, Civic Lines Drawn

The quiet contest over student-led conservative clubs in Staten Island’s schools shines a light on the delicate balance between civic engagement and partisanship in New York’s most politically idiosyncratic borough.

Students at St. Joseph by the Sea High School were treated this month to an invitation that would have bewildered their Manhattan peers: the launch of a Turning Point USA chapter under the watchful eye of not one but two faculty advisors. In a city famed for its liberal cast, and in a school operating under the auspices of the archdiocese, the arrival of a national grassroots conservative club signifies far more than a simple after-school pastime. Not two miles away, Moore Catholic High School deliberated over a similar request—only to decline, citing a longstanding policy against all political clubs.

The immediate news event is concise but telling: Staten Island, historically New York City’s conservative redoubt, finds some of its private schools divided over the question of whether to allow Turning Point USA, a right-leaning youth organisation, into their halls. The College of Staten Island already boasts a chapter. Now, at St. Joseph by the Sea, school leaders describe the new club as a venue for fostering “devotion to the country, to the founding fathers, to the Bill of Rights, and…to the faith dimension of it,” in the words of principal, the Rev. Michael Reilly. Club activities will be monitored closely, lest they stray into outright partisanship.

The episode reveals an underappreciated feature of New York’s civic landscape: the city’s schools are quietly grappling with how—and whether—to cultivate political engagement without promoting division or transgressing institutional values. For public schools, the Department of Education maintains a neutral posture, merely noting that no Turning Point clubs have been registered and all student groups must adhere to regulations already in place. Private schools, meanwhile, enjoy broad discretion, and choose policy with an eye to both their religious missions and the temperature of their student bodies.

At a first order, the development is modest: few teenagers, after all, are assembling in secret to debate the Federalist Papers. Yet the debate portends questions of considerable consequence for student life and standards for free expression in education. Teens eager for a forum to discuss national politics now face a patchwork of policies, with opportunity depending heavily on administrators’ temperaments and institutional risk tolerance.

More broadly, the current skirmish in Staten Island’s schools hints at the pricklier social questions facing the borough and perhaps the city itself. Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012, has become notorious—or celebrated, depending on one’s political leanings—for trenchant conservative advocacy and combative tactics on college campuses. Its expansion into secondary education, even in modest numbers, reflects the growing appetite for ideological affiliation among youth. Some parents, especially in more liberal areas, may worry about division and political grandstanding. Others, weary from years of curricular battles, may see student-led clubs as a healthy counterweight to perceived groupthink.

Looking beyond Staten Island, New York City’s reputation for Democratic hegemony conceals subtle fissures. Staten Island, with its clerical enclaves and significant population of police, fire, and civil service households, has long voted contrarily to its cosmopolitan neighbours. The embrace—even a reluctant one—of Turning Point chapters in local schools thus cuts both ways. It pleases some residents keen to develop a new generation of civic conservatives but prompts unease from critics who see it as a prelude to entrenched partisanship.

As similar debates flicker across American school districts, New York finds itself in the middle of a national trend. Turning Point USA claims thousands of chapters on college campuses nationwide, and over the past two years has more assertively courted high schoolers. In most major cities, these expansions have met resistance, either from administrative blocks or stiff student opposition. Private faith-based schools face special complications: their dual mission to foster both faith and citizenship places them in a constant balancing act, particularly when national politics become fevered.

Notably, the archdiocese allows local leaders ample leeway, preferring to avoid blanket pronouncements. Moore Catholic’s approach—supporting generic civic engagement but rejecting all political groups—sidesteps charges of bias but may inadvertently dampen spirited debate. St. Joseph by the Sea’s cautious green light, with “strong guardrails,” may offer a template: strict oversight and adult involvement, with clear boundaries around prohibited activism or campaign work.

A test case for New York pluralism

Whether these tensions bode ill or augur renewal for the city’s educational climate remains uncertain. On one hand, isolating politics from the schoolyard can appear to shield adolescents from ugly partisanship. On the other, sterilising civic discourse altogether risks cultivating passivity just when society is clamouring for engaged citizens. Data abound showing that early engagement portends lifelong voting and civic habits; a 2022 Pew survey reported that young people involved in student government or debate clubs were twice as likely to vote as adults.

Yet, it would be naïve to ignore the polarising effect some groups—Turning Point USA among them—can provoke. The group’s penchant for stoking controversy through social media and campus activism divides opinion both locally and nationally. While the St. Joseph by the Sea chapter may begin as a study group with a patriotic bent, the incentives for ideological showmanship are ever-present, especially in the current American media environment.

Still, the larger question is not merely whether Turning Point has a foothold, but what sort of civic education Staten Island and, by extension, New York, wishes to cultivate. Prohibiting political clubs altogether treats students as if they are incapable of discernment—a paternalistic view at odds with most educational research. Yet uncritically embracing any group with a slick website and national aspirations risks importing the country’s most unhelpful divisions into a context ill-equipped to mediate them.

As the borough’s schools ponder their next steps, the city at large has the opportunity to model both tolerance and prudent oversight. The approach adopted at St. Joseph by the Sea—adult guidance, firm rules, and a clear demarcation between civic learning and partisan brawl—may not inspire roaring debate, but it at least nudges the pendulum toward engagement over retreat. If nothing else, it offers ironic solace: in a city where so many are intent on talking at cross-purposes, Staten Islanders at least are arguing over who gets to talk.

The modest row over conservative student groups thus serves as a bellwether for the state of civic life in New York’s outer boroughs. Should the city wish to remain both plural and peaceful, it would do well to monitor, rather than muzzle, such developments. The price of a robust democracy, after all, is occasional discomfort—and, every now and then, a well-supervised argument after school. ■