Does your county, city or school district fund your robotics program

[staplemonx]

I am trying to get a better understanding of how teams get funded at the municipal level. If you are funded by your county, city, township, school district, school, etc... I would like to learn more about your funding source, the size and type of funding and how long you have received the funding. If you get free X from the municipal source I would love to learn about those things as well.

Thanks for your responses ahead of time.

We are trying to build the business case for our county to make robotics a bigger part of its official STEM offering and are looking for ideas to include in that business case.

[Bkeeneykid]

We get a very variable donation from our school district every year. This year, it was $3,500 , but last year it was only $500. It really depends who higher up is making decision during the time that we're fundraising. The rest is always made up of local sponsors, and we only ever budget for the $500, the rest is from sponsors.

[wilsonmw04]

Sadly, neither our county or school provides any funding for our team. We are entirely funded by the private citizens and corporations in our community.

[Michael Corsetto]

We didn't get anything from our County, City or School District for many years. Then again, for many years, our team consisted of many students who would rather robotics be a time to see their friends than build a robot. Team culture started changing in 2011.

In 2014, we received our first coaching stipends through the School District. In 2015, we received a $19k loan from the School District to purchase an entire job shop that was going out of business. In 2016, we started a Vex Class that had 4 periods in its first year, and we had a $40k budget for that class. In 2016, District gave us $25k for our FRC program, the first time that has happened. We are hoping that same funding continues for 2017 :)

TL;DR: Develop a program worth funding.

-Mike

[SenorZ]

We also have not received any funds directly from the school, or anyone higher up.
We're going to work on that, since we now will have FRC teams at all four HSs in the city...
We do request funds from PTSA and our school's foundation. And we just received money to buy a new trailer from the foundation. So that's something.

[Doug G]

For the past 10 years, we have receive about $8k from our district and $4k from our county. Another $3-$5k per year from Perkins funding. All of this funds our whole engineering CTE program which includes FIRST and Vex.

[wilsonmw04]

TL;DR: Develop a program worth funding.

-Mike

sadly, that's far easier said than done. In our county all extra curricular CTE funding goes to TSA. They have an odd version of VEX associated with TSA (which I loath, but that's another story for another time). When we ask for money for FIRST, they say they already support a robotics program.

When the higher ups have favorite programs and you aren't it, there isn't much you can do.

[Michael Corsetto]

sadly, that's far easier said than done. In our county all extra curricular CTE funding goes to TSA. They have an odd version of VEX associated with TSA (which I loath, but that's another story for another time). When we ask for money for FIRST, they say they already support a robotics program.

When the higher ups have favorite programs and you aren't it, there isn't much you can do.

Is this the odd version of VEX you are referring to? http://www.roboticseducation.org/vex-robotics-competitionvrc/tsa-vex-robotics-competition/

I agree, it does look weird.

Seems like you have an uphill battle, best of luck becoming the new favorites ;)

Advice for all: Invite higher ups to both competitions and shop work-days. We had multiple board members sold on our program after they saw our students leading meetings and working together.

-Mike

[Lil' Lavery]

From 2006-2015, Dawgma received considerable funding from our school/school district via the athletics and activities department. We both had a spending budget (which we shared with the school's TSA chapter) and they frequently covered our registration fees (when we didn't receive outside grants from NASA or DoD). In 2016, the school district reduced the activities budget in general, which resulted in Dawgma receiving no up front financial support from the school/district. Ultimately, they did assist with our Championship registration fees.

[Sperkowsky]

Our school supports us quite a bit.

From 2009 - 2013 they gave us $10,000 in 2014 - 2015 we received $7,500

Last year we relieved our normal $7,500 and then were greeted with an extra $3,000 for marketing supplies after having a bit of success at an off season event.

[GeeTwo]

Our first three years, build space and institutional top cover.
When we went to CMP in 2015, the school board paid our entry fee.
Beginning in 2016, there is now a coaching stipend (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138148&highlight=stipend). The school board is also funding some FLL startups beginning this year.

[snoman]

Here in Cass Lake out school puts up 5k for our boys team registration and about 3k for travel and parts ect. to split between our two teams. Our girls team gets 5k from Medtronic (Thanks so much for your sponsorship). 3 of our 4 mentors are teachers in the school and two of us are tech ed. teachers and we are able to use our nice labs for our teams. We also get to use school vans and trailer for our trips. We have several small sponsors that contribute and we do some student fundraising. We currently get no funding from our state, county or city.

[Clem1640]

No. We have corporate and private sponsors. But we are not school-affiliated and do not receive school funds.

[guniv]

There are about 7 teams I can think of in the Knox County Schools system here in Knoxville, where the district funds each team for $5,000 to cover the registration fee (although it is given to the teams, not to their FIRST accounts). This amount hasn't changed, even as we gained and lost teams here.

[DonRotolo]

My old team (1676 in NJ) received some funding from the board of education (about $6-8k) plus a head coach stipend with 2 or 3 assistant coach stipends ($2-3k about). But this is a team that has more than a dozen major sponsors, over 100 students, in a well-off district, in high-tax New Jersey.

My new team (832 in Georgia) gets nothing from the school, aside from space. The coach doesn't even get a stipend, and he puts in as much time as anyone. Indeed, they need to collect dues from students or the team would not be viable. I am starting work to get more sponsors, but that takes time. The team is workong with the school board (county schools...) to get a dedicated practice space. Both are just in their infancy.

[Cothron Theiss]

We do not receive any monetary support from the school board, district, or schools. We are legally affiliated with one of the 5 high schools in the county, but we have members from all the schools in the county and homeschooled student(s). While we don't get funding, the high school we are affiliated with allows the old band room to double as the school's STEM classroom and our lab. In return, we buy equipment/tools/machinery with our funds that become the school's property. It works, and has worked for the past two years we've had this arrangement. The odd circumstances arise largely from the fact that the school board doesn't support us whatsoever, but my school's principals are some of our biggest fans, so they try and do everything they can to support us.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Here in Becker, MN the school has allowed the use of space. They support the team and the administration does come to our events.

This last month the School Board looked at providing the team with full funding - but when they saw our overall budget they were more than happy to pay for two coaching positions. We are very happy with this arrangement.