On March 12, the Albemarle County School Board met to vote on changes to its student activities policy, limiting when student groups could host outside speakers, governing how they raised money, and banning groups linked to hate or harassment.
Noah Coffin, a Western Albemarle High School senior and president of the school’s conservative Club America, asked the board to vote no. “You all have a very exciting opportunity to foster [an] environment for free speech and civil dialogue,” he said, “an opportunity to platform civil discussion instead of platforming the culture … of hate, that culture of silence, a culture of keyboard warriors.”
“I have a lot of respect for each and every one of you,” Coffin concluded. “Regardless of how this goes, I will continue to pray for you.”
Coffin struck a different tone in a March 4 Instagram video captioned “Fight. Fight. Fight.” Walking the Downtown Mall in a blue suit and red necktie, Coffin told the board: “We beat you in November, and we’re ready to beat you again.” If the rules passed, Coffin said his chapter and others nationwide were “ready to fight with a force that has never been seen before.” (“My message to the school board both in person and Instagram were both kind and respectful,” Coffin says.)
The school board voted 5-1 to approve the changes.
That vote has become the latest flashpoint in a culture war at Western, centered on Club America, part of Turning Point USA, the well-funded conservative group whose founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated in September 2025. Western’s club has attracted as many as 700 people to see conservative speakers like former 5th District Congressman Bob Good, and his successor, Congressman John McGuire. Figures from the school district show 1,274 students enrolled at the high school for the 2024-2025 school year.
Western’s Club America says it was named High School Chapter of the Year at Turning Point’s AmericaFest 2025. Coffin and other members have been invited to the Trump White House for Christmas, celebrated onstage at Turning Point events, and welcomed at the state capitol by Republican legislators.
Members of Club America say it draws record attendance because students appreciate civil dialogue and open debate. But Western students opposed to the club argue that Club America inflates its numbers by giving out free food and counting detractors who attend its events as club supporters. Opponents say those events stoke divisions within the school, making some students feel unsafe and others hesitant to speak freely.
C-VILLE dug into each policy change to examine how it will affect student groups, and how Turning Point USA may be changing the culture at Western Albemarle.
In-school vs. afterschool
In-person guest speakers shall not be permitted for non-curricular activities during the school day. All student organizations may invite speakers to address organization members during hours after the conclusion of the school day.—Albemarle County School Board
Club America invited Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation of Virginia, to Western on October 1 to deliver a speech entitled “Two Genders, One Truth.” Western’s principal, Jennifer Sublette, initially denied Club America’s request for the speech, changing course after lawyers for Cobb and the club’s faculty sponsor claimed the denial violated the First Amendment.
School board member Allison Spillman, parent of a transgender child, criticized the speech on her personal Facebook page: “If the KKK wanted a speaker during lunch, would we allow that as well?” She later apologized for the comparison.
In November, Spillman proposed a review of the student activities policy, which the school board unanimously approved. School staff took over from there, comparing existing policies with those in other Virginia districts, then holding focus groups with staff, students, and caregivers to identify areas of concern. Spillman says the board had no further input until its March 12 public meeting; she initially hoped the review would be completed by December.
“Our policy before was so lax and provided such little guidelines that a lot was put on the principals ahead of time to make decisions,” Spillman says. “Between the high schools, there wasn’t even consistency.”
The new policy distinguishes co-curricular groups, which “serve as an extension of the school curriculum,” from non-curricular groups, “initiated by students with recreational, community, religious, political, or other interests that are not part of the school curriculum.” All non-curricular groups get equal access to school facilities. None can receive school funding. And non-curricular groups can only host speakers after school hours, a change school staff say came from focus-group feedback.
“This was an extremely public policy development with none of the board changes made in private meetings,” school board Chair Rebecca Berlin says. “We believe this policy accurate[ly] reflects the desires of the public and better meets the needs of the students.”
But Club America members say the change makes it much harder for them to hold events, including a planned April speech by Erika Kirk, who has headed Turning Point USA since her husband’s murder. In a March 4 Instagram video, Coffin said the policy change aimed to ban Kirk from speaking.
“The policy broadly prohibits guest speakers for non-curricular clubs,” Coffin says. “Because [it] was prompted by a situation involving one of our speakers, many naturally view [that] restriction as disproportionately affecting our chapter.”
Some of the club’s opponents agree that lunchtime meetings are easier for people to attend, given students’ often conflicting commitments after school.
“Being at lunch is so accessible,” says Ike Noth, a Western senior and president of Dream for America—a progressive alternative to Club America. “There’s still groups that definitely care and would still attend these things afterwards, but their numbers would never, ever hit the same amount of students.”
Senior Madeleine Fuller is the co-president of Western’s We the People club, a competitive civics debate team. “We’ve been organizing strictly after school for several years,” she says. “We had speakers this year all after school, and we had some pretty good turnout. … I think if there’s an event that’s gaining so much traction within the student body and that so many students want to attend, they will be able to attend that event while still being able to maintain their position in other after-school activities.”
Though senior Brady Wilson doesn’t support Club America, he believes that the policy change comes across as “[hasty] and very targeted.” But he notes that “it’s not like it’s only going to affect Turning Point. It’s going to affect Dream for America as well.”
Coffin says Western’s Club America chapter is “pursuing alternative solutions” to bring Erika Kirk to campus.
Publicity blitz
Student organizations may hand out flyers and post announcements and other materials only with prior approval of the principal or designee to ensure compliance with school board policies and school regulations.
“We’ve seen our attendance grow from 120 students at our very first meeting to over 700 students in our most recent meeting,” Coffin says. “Members are counted as students who have filled out a membership form in person or online. Not all meeting attendees are members.” Coffin and other Turning Point club members did not specify the group’s official membership numbers.
“It’s massive,” Noth agrees, saying no prior Western club has posted similar attendance.
To draw those crowds, students say Turning Point blankets the school in ads. “The flyer method was not used as aggressively before Turning Point USA,” Wilson says. “You see one every stairwell, every hallway, near every bathroom.”
“You can’t turn anywhere without seeing one,” another student says.
Turning Point also gives away free food—pizza, donuts, bagels—to ever-hungry teenagers. An Instagram video shows people hurling free T-shirts to students in the auditorium during one recent event. Other students report raffles for $25 gift cards at Club America meetings.
Before Turning Point, Fuller says, no other club promoted events like this, “simply because they didn’t have the funds to.”
According to WAHS Principal Sublette, Club America has deposited and spent donations totaling $800 in its school-managed student activity account. “They have used those funds to purchase pizza three times and for a reimbursement for supplies for a community service activity,” she said. “Currently the school activity fund balance is $0.”
Coffin says that Club America’s financial details are “not public information,” and otherwise declined to comment on the club’s budget. It’s not clear whether that $800 covered the other food and giveaways students described, or if the funding came from a different source.
“Especially at the John McGuire meeting, we learned that Turning Point counted the meeting attendance based on how many plates of pizza that they gave out,” Fuller says.
“I’ve had some of the leadership tell me that that is how they count up their attendee count,” Noth says. “They like to use that as their base: ‘This is 700 engaged students,’ but counting the pizza. … I find that it’s misleading.”
“Our chapter has been expanding so rapidly that we barely have enough pizza to go around,” Coffin says. “For example, only about 200 of 700 students received a slice during our last meeting, yet all 700 stayed.”
“Pizza alone won’t attract 700-plus students into a room,” he says. “The idea of open dialogue and civil discussion is attractive to students. The idea of being part of the strongest movement in the nation is attractive to students.”
“From my experience at Western, talking to students, going to these meetings,” Noth says, “[Club America does] not have the strong base that they claim to have. … Admittedly, they’re bringing a lot of students, and while they’ll claim that that is because they’re all passionate, I think it’s because people want pizza.”
Disrupted days
Student organizations shall not engage in any activity … which materially and substantially disrupt[s] the school’s learning environment …
Berlin says the policy change was partly driven by “dozens of requests from families and students alike … to address their concerns regarding disruptions and security during the school day caused by club activities.”
For Cobb’s October speech, Spillman says the school had mental health first responders and additional police on site. “To have a speaker come for 25 minutes—that’s a lot of resources. We’re in the middle of a really tough budget season, so when we’re talking about where we’re allocating our money and how we’re spending our money, I want to see it in the classroom.”
Students described the February McGuire event as the talk of the school.
“In my class, the entire class, we talked about that meeting,” Noth says. “And I know many other students from dozens of classes, all they did after that meeting was talk about the meeting.”
“If our event fosters discussion among classmates throughout the day, it is not our responsibility or intention to regulate that,” says junior Olivia Kate Crombie, Club America’s secretary. “I know for me personally it was not a main topic of discussion in any of my classes.”
“During our third period, we didn’t really do much school,” Fuller says. “We talked a lot about the meeting. … A lot of people were angry that what had been broadcasted as a debate had turned into something that didn’t feel like a debate at all.”
Turning Point and Club America advertised McGuire’s visit as a “prove me wrong” debate. Western’s lunch period lasts 35 minutes, and McGuire spoke for seven to 10 of those minutes at the beginning of the event.
Brady Wilson was able to ask McGuire a question, after which “I got the mic pulled away from my face.” Questioners weren’t given the opportunity to rebut McGuire’s replies, which Wilson and others describe as evasive and unconvincing.
“It was very negative in the auditorium,” Fuller says. “People were booing and jeering [McGuire] and very supportive of the students who were asking questions.”
Senior El Garth, who attended the event, says she took debate class freshman year. “One thing I do remember is that in order for something to be a debate, you have to allow somebody to respond,” she said. “If they had just advertised it as a Q&A to begin with, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but because they didn’t, [students] were very upset.”
“The term ‘prove me wrong’ is not married to a multi-round-style debate,” Coffin says. “Congressman McGuire’s stances were published ahead of time, giving students a shot to ‘prove him wrong.’ Even with that shorter style, we only had time for about six questions.”
“They are creating conflict,” Noth says. “I think a lot of the students come to these things and are interested because they’re controversial topics, and students are angry about it, and it’s entertaining. From what I have seen, [Club America is] really trying to play off of that.”
“We are not trying to create conflict,” Coffin says. “We are trying to create space for civil, open discussion between students with different viewpoints.”
Hatred and harassment
Student organizations that promote or endorse violence, harassment, or hatred toward an identifiable person or group based on race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability or are affiliated with any organizations that do so shall not be permitted.
Club America members express concern that this policy change would allow Western to ban their organization. “When a school board member has previously compared our chapter to the KKK,” Coffin says, “it raises concerns for us about how such standards might be applied in practice and whether our club could be unfairly targeted.”
“The great replacement of white people is far more sinister than any redistricting project,” Charlie Kirk said on his August 4, 2025, podcast, echoing a white nationalist conspiracy theory of the same name that believes ethnic white populations are being deliberately overrun by non-white immigrants. The Southern Poverty Law Center included Turning Point USA in its 2024 Year in Hate & Extremism, noting the organization and Kirk’s harsh rhetoric against immigrants and gay and transgender Americans.
Turning Point USA has maintained public watchlists of academics and officials whose views the organization finds objectionable. The American Association of University Professors and various news outlets have documented numerous cases of targeted harassment against people placed on those lists.
But multiple school officials say Club America itself has done nothing to run afoul of the new rule.
“I have not heard instances where the students have been making hateful comments or remarks to other students,” Spillman says. “They follow the rules and they’re being respectful.”
“[Albemarle County Public Schools] is committed to protecting the constitutional rights of all students,” says ACPS spokesperson Jason Grant. “The school board is not aware of any speech or conduct by the Club America chapter at Western Albemarle High School that violates these standards.”
C-VILLE could not find a recording of Victoria Cobb’s presentation at Western. On its website, Cobb’s organization lists one of its issues as “fighting the false ideology of ‘transgenderism’ in our schools and workplace … This false view of gender and sex cannot be forced on all people, undermining parents and compelling speech.”
“The most unsettling thing about the Turning Point stuff is that it’s not super in your face,” said a Western student, who identifies as transgender and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Sometimes you’ll just be walking in the hallway, and you’ll pass by a group of people talking about how they don’t think I should be allowed in [the restroom matching their gender]. It’s that underlying sense of, you don’t belong, and of not feeling safe.”
“When Victoria Cobb came,” the student says, “it was finally showing that that’s what it really is like. And I think that’s what really shocked people.”
“It’s just something that I happen to be,” says the trans student. “I was born something else than I feel, than I actually am. … It’s not an ideology or stated beliefs. It’s just something I have to be in order to be myself.”
“Victoria Cobb discussed her opinion on a popular issue in a loving, kind, respectful manner,” Coffin says. “We love our transgender students and pray they will be comfortable in the unique and wonderful way God created them. … However, I believe people with XY chromosomes will always be men, and people with XX chromosomes will always be female. I refuse to affirm lies.”
Club America members say they’ve been targeted at school for their beliefs. “Many of our leaders have experienced threats either online or in person,” Crombie says, including “hateful name-calling or death threats.” Several students outside the group confirmed that Club America members have received such condemnation.
“They have, I think, been treated unfairly, but they’ve also treated other people unfairly,” one student says. “I’ve heard of people in Turning Point getting kicked out of friend groups because they’re part of it, or being kicked out of parties. But what they’re doing is very harmful … They’ll make fun of the way kids look and the way kids are acting.”
“I am friendly with the president and vice president of the club,” Noth says. “They are people that I’m able to have a conversation with. … I don’t think anybody should be being attacked. But being criticized I find different, and I find to be something that actually spurs from their own club.”
Phantom fundraising
All fundraising by student organizations, both inside and outside of the school, requires prior principal or designee approval … All monies raised or collected by student organizations or clubs shall be school activity funds and shall be deposited promptly with the school … If a student organization is dissolved, the student activity funds continue to belong to the school.
In his March 4 Instagram video about the upcoming board meeting, Coffin says the policy change “gives [the school board] complete control of our funding.” But before the March 12 vote, existing school board policies, readily viewable online, already dictated how student groups could raise and spend money.
Those prior policies, reiterated and referenced in the board’s March 12 update, required any funds raised by student groups to be deposited with the district or an individual school. Groups needed written approval from their principal to start a crowdfunding campaign. Such campaigns could not use photos of students, nor solicit funds for “items or projects that are religious or political in nature or that have a religious or political purpose.”
In February 2025, around when Club America began at Western Albemarle, someone set up a GoFundMe page in its name. An archive of the page shows that the organizer used the name of Club America’s student treasurer. The page featured photos of Western students in the club and mentioned the school by name.
“To further our mission, we are raising funds to support programs, bring in impactful speakers, and expand our outreach efforts,” the campaign’s description read. “This GoFundMe campaign will help us finance these initiatives and ensure that our chapter continues to grow and make a difference.”
Roughly a year later, in February 2026, a second archive of the page showed that funds raised had grown from $850 to $13,888 from 141 donors, with a $15,000 goal.
The treasurer was still named as the GoFundMe’s organizer at the time of the second archive, with Michelle Karpovich, the club’s faculty advisor, listed as the campaign’s beneficiary. Again, the page showed photos of students in the club and mentioned Western by name. The description had been changed from the first archive, mentioning a goal of $10,000 to “host a major fall gala … [to] celebrate the success of our chapter.”
An October 24, 2025, post on Club America’s Instagram appears to show a private, off-campus venue for this gala, which the post says took place the following day.
C-VILLE saw an active version of the GoFundMe page prior to the March 12 school board meeting that enacted the updated policy. At some point between then and the days after the meeting, the campaign was taken down.
Both Sublette and Grant say they’d never heard of the campaign. “Club leaders have not informed me of outside fundraising for the club,” Sublette says. Beyond the $800 for pizza and community projects, she had no record of other deposits into the club’s school account.
“I do not have any record of Club America at Western seeking approval for crowdsource funding,” Grant says. “I also have no way of knowing for certain who set up that account nor its legitimacy.” He confirmed that even before the March 12 changes, the board’s policies would apply to this GoFundMe if it were set up by a student group.
“I think it’s important that any school activity follow strict guidelines on how funds are raised, reported, and used,” Berlin says. “We can’t allow our student organizations to be exploited or for outside groups to falsely claim to be official ACPS organizations in the hopes [of increasing] their fundraising ability.”
When asked directly about the GoFundMe, Coffin did not express surprise or say it was not connected with the group. “The county has told us repeatedly that because we are sponsored by an outside organization, we are required to manage our own funding,” he says.
C-VILLE sent further questions to Club America leadership on March 23 and Karpovich on March 25 about the GoFundMe, and about which county officials provided this guidance. No responses had been received at press time.
C-VILLE attempted to reach the club’s treasurer, whom the club still listed in that role in a December 2025 Instagram post, through their parents. Via email, their mother declined to comment.
Civil discourse and open dialogue
Club America members say they want to promote open debate at a school they characterize as previously closed-minded and closed-mouthed.
“Maybe we can have discussion about cellular respiration in biology class, but before TPUSA entered the scene, political dialogue was taboo,” Coffin says. “Now, students are comfortable sharing their views, learning from other perspectives, and talking respectfully to people they disagree with.”
Other students say that even before Club America arrived, they had challenging, complex exchanges in their regular classes with people of different viewpoints.
Wilson spoke fondly of attending his junior year AP history class with one of Club America’s founders. He felt he benefited from exchanging views with someone with a different perspective. “I would say that was the most open-dialogue discussion I’ve ever had.”
“I have discussions within my group of friends and people around me about stuff like that all the time, and I think those have been good experiences for me,” says another student.
Western students outside the club express skepticism about Club America’s commitment to open debate.
“What they value is ragebait,” Noth says. “If they wanted open discussion … they would let us have real conversations with these speakers.”
“Based on the speakers that they’ve brought in … particularly with [Victoria Cobb], I would absolutely not categorize that as open and civil discussion,” Fuller says. “I think claiming open dialogue and civil discourse while promoting these hateful, harmful, targeting messages is not the kind of club you would want to be.”
“While [Club America members] are friendly to other students in person,” she says, it’s hard to “separate the interactions that you have privately with what’s being posted online that students see.”
“It’s not clear acts of discrimination happening in your face,” says the transgender student. “It’s just, now you know that people don’t think you should exist. … Just being there feels unsafe and uncomfortable, and it’s a little scary, and it just feels wrong. People don’t talk about it, because it’s this taboo subject … you don’t know if a person is going to disagree or agree with it.”
“It’s affected the relationships that I’ve been able to make with people on my sports teams,” says one student-athlete, “or even some of my coaches. I found it harder to get along with some of the [older students] on my [sports] team, because they were a part of the Turning Point club, and I feel like they had this opinion about me, that they just didn’t like me for some reason.”
“It’s not fostering open dialogue,” Wilson says. “It is fostering division.” Though no one’s being forced to attend Club America’s events, “this is something that spreads across the entire school, no matter where it is,” he says. “And everybody talks about it.”
Spillman says she believes that Club America has created division, even fear, among students and staff. “I really want students to be able to safely express their different opinions and not be fearful of it on both sides,” she says. “I hope that we can get back to that environment at Western, and I think that is one of the main goals of this policy.”
“The presence of differing viewpoints in a student body is not divisive,” says Coffin. “What some label as ‘divisive’ is often simply the introduction of perspectives that were previously underrepresented or discouraged.”
“If the introduction of views different than theirs upsets certain students,” says Crombie, “there is nothing we can do about it.”
C-VILLE interviewed multiple Western Albemarle High School students while reporting this article. All were either 18 or older, spoke with us with their parents’ prior knowledge and permission, or were encouraged to speak with us by their faculty advisor.
