Student Participation Agreement

[GMKlenklen]

Hi,

Last year, my team had a bit of a problem with attendance (on the order of 10^0). As a result, the leaders have decided upon two things to fix this issue. First, the new attendance policy is "To miss one time is alright---to miss twice means take a hike!" Second, the student participation agreement is as follows:

By being selected as part of the Missouri Academy Robotics Club (used interchangeably with "MASMAbots"), I agree to the following behaviors, stipulations and methods of accountability:


Without fail, abide by the principles of Integrity and quality.
Earn and maintain a minimum trimester AND cumulative GPA of 3.0 by the conclusion of Fall 2008, without exception.
Attend and participate in meetings and activities as scheduled.
Abide by the schedule and time line set by the robotics club co-president, FIRST, or the robotics club adviser.
Positively represent the Missouri Academy and Northwest and understand that I must abide by all Missouri Academy and Northwest policies and regulations.
Pay expenses not covered by the Missouri Academy which may include, but are not limited to, meals before and after the conference, club apparel and other spirit items.
Be present and available at all departures for the competition.
Present the results of the competition and your involvement with the robotics club to the Missouri Academy staff no later than the end of April, 2008 unless directed otherwise.
Abide by all FIRST standards, policies and regulations.


I, _______________________________________________, accept this position on the robotics club of the Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing at Northwest Missouri State University and all of the responsibilities therein. In the unlikely event that I am unable to attend the competition in Kansas City, I will either find a suitable replacement to be approved by the co-presidents and advisor, or will pay the full registration fee to the Missouri Academy. Furthermore, as a delegate, if I am found responsible for violating any of the aforementioned or implied standards and policies, any delegate will be financially responsible for refunding the Missouri Academy the entire amount of registration, travel, and other costs associated with my membership.

_________________________ _________
Delegate Signature Date

_________________________ _________
Co-President Signature Date

_______ _________
Advisor Initial Date



Personally, I disagree with the highly ambiguous wording that our advisor (our school's dean of student development) has included in this document. Consequently I also disagree with forcing members to pay an unknown amount of money (presumably at least six grand) for missing two meetings, or being unable to attend the competition.

I want to persuade our advisor to rephrase the entire document, removing major monetary commitments from our members. I would like to present to him an example of what successful FIRST teams have their members sign.

Please leave your thoughts on this subject, feel free to ask questions, and most of all, your team's student participation agreement!

Thanks,
Mason K.

[Leav]

Hi Mason,

I must say I totally agree with you regarding this "agreement". it looks much more like a deal with the devil than an agreement to participate in the best robotics competition in the known universe! :rolleyes:

I can relate to your attendance problem: we had a similar issue where we had about 15 registered team members but only 4 were really into the project.

Our approach to the problem has been to try and explain to people how much they can benefit from the project as well as how much work is put into it so they can be a part of it.

I can see a situation where a real agreement could be signed but I think it should be more in the spirit of:

I want to be part of the FIRST robotics Challenge.
I understand that lots of people work very hard to make it possible for me and my teammates to be part of the FRC.
I promise to do my best to attend all team meetings and events.
I will do my best to help the team as much as I can.


I think a list like that would be better for you, because you don't really want anyone involved if they don't want to - but you do want them to respect the program and commit to being a part of it.

Good luck!
-Leav

[vivek16]

ditto it seems too unfair. A "suitable replacement" ? what the heck is that supposed to mean? I personally dont think that everyone on the team needs to go to a regional if they dont want to. remember: family, grades, and health are much much more important than FIRST. Keep that in mind. Won't there be some exceptions to the rule? What if a funeral or wedding is during when the competetion is?

Would you find a suitable replacement by simply finding another student? that would not work.

just my opinions, vivek

If you really want more membership make them pay a "club fee" of 50-100 dollars. That way, the people that are involved will stay involved because of the monetary commitment. Also, plan the meetings to be fun and productive. No body likes being bored and not getting done at meetings. If that is the case, no body will show up.

I would say maybe make 3 meetings mandatory per week. and they can choose which ones they come to unless they are busy some day.

[Alivia]

I understand the problem that your team is going through. Many teams have problem with attendance with their students.

First, the new attendance policy is "To miss one time is alright---to miss twice means take a hike!"

Is this policy for the time during the six weeks, or for the entire season?
It seems a little strict in my opinion. As a former student, I know there were times when I just couldn't make it, for a number of reasons. Since the agreement requires a 3.0 GPA for the entire time on the team, you might want to bring up to the advisor that students need to study for tests and finals, work on projects, etc. Sometimes students need a lot of time to work on such things, which could lead to them missing at least one robotics meeting, but probably a few more as well.

I definitely agree with you about the wording of the actual document. It is more foreboding than it is welcoming and about FIRST, and I get a little confused about the actual costs needing to be paid if a student ends up not being able to go to a competition. Do they mean the student will have to pay the entire $6000, or do they mean the student would pay his/her fraction of that cost? One last thing I'm semi-confused about is finding the "suitable replacement". Are they referring to someone else on the team, or someone completely new? If it's the latter, that would be difficult to do, as the team would be extremely far in the season and a new student would be thrown into something they probably know relatively little about.

These are some of things you should bring up to the advisor. Like Leav said, you want students who WANT to be there; if they keep coming because they are afraid of violating the terms in the agreement, the entire team morale could go down.

This is a very touchy situation. I wish you all the best with finding a solution!
:)

[Scott Carpman]

Hi,


Earn and maintain a minimum trimester AND cumulative GPA of 3.0 by the conclusion of Fall 2008, without exception.


That sounds impossible to maintain. People slip up, it's a fact of life. I'd eliminate the grade quota.

[vivek16]

well a 3.0 is B average. I would suggest making it atleast a c average. FIRST, although supposed to be for the academic elite in the beginning, has become something that gives people a chance to do something in their lives. Remember, this is a program that will affect a kids whole life. Chances are if they are in FIRST they will be motivated to keep up their grades so they can go into whatever career they want.

-vivek

[EricH]

I don't have too much of an issue with the bulleted part. The GPA maybe, and the attendance bullet should include something about "unless prior commitments interfere," but that seems to be all right.The attendance policy should probably be a little looser--twice unexcused would be better.

What worries me is the agreement part. The replacement/pay full registration fee for not attending the regional is particularly bothersome. There have been known cases of people getting sick at events. If the student was sick, I don't think it's fair to force them to come, which is what that sentence does. It's also not fair to everyone else at the event who might get sick.

What is even worse is the last sentence.
Furthermore, as a delegate, if I am found responsible for violating any of the aforementioned or implied standards and policies, any delegate will be financially responsible for refunding the Missouri Academy the entire amount of registration, travel, and other costs associated with my membership. OK, so if I am a member and I violate policies, who pays the ($6,000+)? Is it me, or is it someone else? Is the registration by share, or not? What are the implied policies?

Not to mention that the use of the term "delegate" implies a conference, not a competition. "Team member" would be more appropriate.


On my team, we only have two meetings that you have to show up at per week. Other than that, there is a "Gentlemen's Agreement" that pretty much says "I agree to follow all the rules that are in the school Code of Conduct and imposed by our work area. I also agree to be careful and not engage in horseplay." It's a bit more detailed than that, but everything on there boils down to those two sentences. We've almost never had a problem.

[GMKlenklen]

I want to thank you all again for posting here, it will be a big help!

As it may be important, I would like to give a brief history of 2167, and perhaps this will answer some of your questions.

First off, 2167 is comprised of students from the Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics, and Computing. This is a residential high school program that essentially replaces the last two years of high school with the first two years of college at Northwest Missouri State University (which is your average small state college... with a great band and education program). There are entrance requirements that essentially set the demographic of students who have found their high school too easy, unchanging, and boring. to remain a student at the academy, you must keep a college GPA of 2.75 or greater, fail no more than one class, and avoid being expelled for non-academic issues. Because it's a residential system, they have a privilege system that grants extra freedoms to students with a GPA at or above 3.25

Last year, I started the academy's first ever robotics program, and proceeded to lead a pre-season lego competition. The idea was to get everyone in the mindset for build season. unfortunately, the majority of the team did not respond well to this, and meetings where more like waisted time. Come build season, we still did not have a professional mentor, and I comprised about 95% of the knowledge about any given game rule. though the first week of build season we conducted productive design and strategy meetings, I was commonly the only one "available" to work on the robot despite the fact that the robot room was open for team members to build from 4pm to 6pm every day. after about 4 weeks, I had spent too much time worrying about the fate of the team, and not enough on learning calculus, or staying awake during Chemestry 2. The Dean of Student Development then decided that it would behoove me to quit all affiliation with the robotics team for the remainder of that semester. At this point, our vice president, who helped me start the team took controll, and somehow everyone finally figured out that the robot wouldn't build it's self. The team went on to compete in the St. Louis regional, and receive "medallions of failure" as one team member jokingly called them.

This year, my GPA is 2.83, and is too low to think about leading any clubs or organizations. I passed the power to our two most active members. Also, the Dean of Student Development decided that he should advise the club, seeing as we spent $11,500 of our $9,500 "projected budget". This year, our budget is $9,000 (if I'm not mistaken). And, as I mentioned before, the new team leadership has taken two steps towards fixing the attendance issues.

If I where still team leader (Grad Master, under the constitution set out at the beginning of last year) I would be confidant that because we have 100% of our members who have not graduated from the academy returning, they will spread the message and need of attending build meetings to our new students. Also, I would amend to the constitution a need for all members to sign a contract stating that they are aware of the commitment that the task requires to be done correctly, and that they plan to contribute as much as they can, within reason.

And if you'd like to skip all that text...

I would still like to see an actual example of another team's student agreement!

And Also, I want to ask all of you if it would be alright for me to quote your statements, as I try to persuade our advisor.

Thanks so much,
Mason

[EricH]

Looks like I was wrong about the Gentlemen's Agreement. It's actually on the application to join the team.

You can use what I said, other than the last paragraph of my last post in this thread. I personally think that the advisor will agree about his statement being extremely vague. (In contracts, the more specific, the better, so that everybody is sure of what they need to do/what the penalties are.)

[Scott Carpman]

I found a copy of the SciBorgs Constitution already uploaded to CD.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1862

There have been a few minor amendments since then, but this should help you greatly.

[Blue_Mist]

As to attendance: we have a small team overall and an even smaller truly dedicated team. However, we do try to recruit and give everyone, veteran and fresh recruit, a packet of forms to fill out and sign every year. We don't have grade or meeting requirements and rely mostly on personal honesty and trust everyone's list of their own priorities.

As to forms: we have a contact and medical, a student/parent expectations form (see below), consent and release forms for the competitions, personal vehicle use forms, the school's medical forms and the school's field trip permission forms for individual trips (competitions, demos, public relations, etc).

This is our team's expectations form.

~Begin Form~

We expect all team members to follow some basic rules of conduct and participation. To indicate your understanding
and acceptance of these expectations, please read each of the following sections, and sign at the end.

Student Expectations

Every student team member agrees to the following:
This is a team.

I will treat other team members with respect.

Many adults support our work. I will treat mentors, parent supervisors, and faculty advisers with respect. I will follow the rules established by these adults.

The tools we use can be dangerous. I will exercise appropriate caution and follow safety procedures when using tools. I will ask for instructions before using tools I am not familiar with.

Any member's actions reflect upon the whole team. I will conduct myself in a responsible and mature manner at all public team events.

We do not have a team bus (yet). I will arrange my own transportation when attending team meetings, competitions, or other team events.

Critical team communications occur via email. I will check my e-mail as regularly as possible for robotics-related purposes.

Parent/Guardian Expectations

The parents of student team members agree to the following:

My son/daughter is joining the M-A Robotics Team. I have read and support what is expected of them (“Student Expectations”).

All families share the responsibility for providing food and supervision. I will try to have my family contribute at least one food or supervision slot during this year's build season.
Parent awareness improves support.

I will keep myself informed, by attending parent meetings and/or reading the email meeting notes.

~End Form~

This has been modified since 2006, and is on one sheet of paper. Putting both the parent and student requirements on a single sheet of paper increases the chances of both sets of expectations being read. We haven't ever had problems with discipline or anything else, so we no longer write out the disciplinary measures if the expectations are not followed.

I'm sorry for being long-winded, but so is the list of forms. Luckily these forms only need to be filled out once a year. A necessary evil, as my friend (Co-President, so I guess that's what one of the Co-Presidents must do) and her mom (who deal with the paperwork) put it.

[synth3tk]

We're a generally small team and, as with most of you, only have about four dedicated members. I believe the only forms filled out were the school's medical/extracurricular documents. We didn't make up anything for our club, but the basic ruling was to attend 80% of the meetings. Though most people were fine with it, come time to build the robot they didn't really do much, if at all. Personally, I think the forms depend on the teams and their situations.

Also, I agree that the costs clause is perplexing. After reading your second post I understand where they came from with that document, but it almost have the nature of a luxury business trip form. Too tired to be original, so ditto what EricH said. :D

[RoboMom]

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=7022
check out some of the examples for expectations for students in these team manuals.

[Pat Arnold]

MARS developed a form that students and their parents are asked to sign upon joining the club. It explains our basic expectations. A copy of last year's form can be found here: http://marsbot.org/files/2007expectations.pdf Perhaps this will be helpful.

[octothorpe]

To follow up on Mika's post, here is a link to the actual PDF file for the form we ask students to sign, in our case called "Team Expectations":

http://team.marobotics.org/forms/07/team_contract.pdf

As mentioned, Team 766 isn't exactly inundated with membership applications, so we wanted to avoid having a contract that seemed too intimidating. Besides, for the most part the students on our team are cooperative and enthusiastic, so it's not like we have a great need for regulations and rules. However, we still like the idea of having *some* kind of participation agreement, hence the aforementioned form being one of the two essential ones required in order to be considered a member (the second one being the team medical/contact info form in case of emergencies, as noted by Mika).

Compare this current version with our previous rendition, which was a bit on the authoritarian side, focused on consequences, and included mentor expectations (:confused:):

http://team.marobotics.org/documents/RoboticsContract.html

I strongly disliked the older version in both its tone and its efficiency, so I took it upon myself to rewrite the expectations in as positive and succinct a manner as possible. In particular, I provided a clear reason for each request we were making to try and emphasize that the purpose of the expectations is to streamline team activities, not to entangle people in unnecessary strictures.

[Qbranch]

Personally, and by personally I speak on the behalf of team 1024, we had a huge issue the past couple years with several (maybe about 6~8) people who magically showed up on the day we were going to leave to go out of town, and were registered for the team, but never showed up on any or many of the work days. Obviously they just wanted to cut class.

So, after rummaging around in the attic of McKenzie career center, we found a timecard puncher and a huuuuuge stack of timecards. Now we have a forty hour requirement that is surveyed by your subteam leader (programming, electrical, etc.). Basically, if you don't have forty documented hours, you don't travel.

Of course my programming kids won't have any problem with that... considering they've already met the 40 hour requirement and the season HASN'T EVEN STARTED...

Does that make me mean? :]

Quick swerve off topic: The programming project I dreamed up for us to work on 'does the wave' with a row of 8 airplane servos... turned out rockin sweet. I'll have to post video of it sometime... makes what looks just like ocean waves with a row of notecards... unfortunately, I opened a whole can of worms diving into some trig stuff: Now they want to build a small pen plotter! Oh if only we had more time before the season started...

-q

[colin340]

i think the grade thing is not a good idea i may scare off some kids who need this program to help them,
get the students on the team then help put up there grades
as for atendents rules will not help you need to make them want to come the meetings in the season
as for off season meeting while that a different story they may need some force

[bobdahaxor]

Since our team operates on a 5 day build schedule, We have 4 days mandated. You can miss one day a week, but Saturday is mandatory! Otherwise you are considered inactive unless you talk to our club supervisor. This means you can participate in functions, but not go to events that we have to stay overnight!

[GMKlenklen]

well, thank you all for trying to help me and my team through this. It seems like we've concocted a plan to rally up support while not angering our advisor... and hopefully this action will alow us to operate closer to the ideals that first represents. thanks again!

[+()c|D]

i think your team should put minimums on the amount of work that the team members have to put in, such as:
3/5 days a week or minimum 15 hours a week during build season.

Thats a bit less threatening and maybe even only allow team members with enough hours to go on trips and so on.

[Sunshine]

Students have a lot of commitments: school, family, church, sports,etc. etc. etc.

We are a new team (second year) but were also concerned with students that showed up at regional time that put little effort into the building season. We wanted to reward students who put their heart and should into the team versus the notion of penalizing.

We took a different approach this year.
We decided to take approximately 16-18 students to the first regional event in St. Louis. This event is 6 hours from our locale. To qualify for this event, students will be judged on their participation and their importance to the team. We will take the best of the best. We anticipate 5-6 pit crew
members, 1-2 spokespersons, 2-3 drivers, 2-3 scouts, 1 safety director, and a software expert. The best thing that a student can do for the team and insure their chances of participating at St. Louis is to become valuable as a team
member. They do this by learning as much as they can and helping with as many duties as possible. Stay must stay active and visible.

[robogeek753]

Our team has problems in attendance similar to everyone else's here. We have 30-40 people "on" the team, but only 10ish that work. However, our members pay to go to competitions, so if they want to dish out $100+ to cheer, they can. Only the people that were involved in build are allowed to be "involved" in competition, as in driving, working on the robot etc. In extreme circumstances they are not allowed to go; but you may be suprised to see what some of the slackers turn out to be (ours became a welder and main driver after slacking his first year). I would say make no requriments for "being" on the team, or even going to competition (as long as the team isn't paying for it) but make contribution (not neccesarily attendance) the requirement for being involved in the truly fun parts of the season. Regionals!

Just one extra thought:

This year, you can't be on the field unless you can show extensive knowledge of the game rules in the manual (for our team).

[Stephi Rae]

I definitely agree with pretty much everything that has been said here.

Our team requires that students attend 80% of meetings in order to travel to the competitions, which is how we motivate attendance. If you do not WANT to go (I really can't imagine why, but in any case) you are not going to be forced to attend. We also have necessary 3.0 GPA to be in leadership, though if something sever happens, such as a health or family issue like I had last year, this can be excused or revised. I thought I had an electronic copy of the document, but it looks like I do not. If you're interested, you can PM me and I can get it or give you the contact for my coach and he would be able to provide you with it.

As far as general member GPA, no one is allowed to be failing a class, and I believe the minimum is a 2.0 (C average). Our school does not give D's, so that is pretty much the same as saying you cannot fail any classes. However, failing a class does not kick you off of the team, it simply means you cannot attend competitions. Also, our team is instituting a mandatory study period this year, to help students with their homework and grades. It looks like it is going to work very well. There are a few hours between the end of school and the start of our meetings, so there is about an hour in there that we go and work on our homework. That way students that are struggling can get necessary help from other students or from teachers (a lot of our teachers stay at school pretty late, and are very helpful). We are a small high school, and finally have all four grades (our school is only 4 years old, and we started with just my class of 08 as freshman) so the older students have already taken all of the classes and we are able and willing to help. Then there's a dinner break also before the meeting.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like someone outside of the team is writing up this agreement? I don't understand how that could be applicable, because this person does not seem to understand your purpose. Our team came up with this agreement as a community decision with our coach, and everyone was encouraged to provide some input. We wrote a simple outline of the things that were needed to be addressed and then went through all of them as a team and put down all of the solid rules and qualifications.

I hope this was of some help, and feel free to contact me if you need anything, like a copy of our agreement.

Steph

[EricH]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like someone outside of the team is writing up this agreement? I don't understand how that could be applicable, because this person does not seem to understand your purpose. He pretty much said that (school admin with no FIRST experience, as I recall). FRC doesn't stand for FIRST Robotics Conference, that's for sure.

By the way, GMKlenklen, what's your status?

[Stephi Rae]

He pretty much said that (school admin with no FIRST experience, as I recall). FRC doesn't stand for FIRST Robotics Conference, that's for sure.

By the way, GMKlenklen, what's your status?

After reading your first post again, GMKlenklen, and after some much needed rest, it now looks to me as though you mentioned the guy as your "team advisor (and our dean of student development). Depending on how your school runs things, I see this as either your coach :ahh: , or an administrator assigned to manage your club/team within your school. My primary suggestion to resolve this issue, would be to approach him with a group from your team that have been the primary leaders and respectfully request that the team as a whole be able to brainstorm and form a new, reasonable and effective student participation agreement.

I am sure that this is very difficult for you and your team, I am assuming that you are a second year team by your number, as are we (Team 1983), and we sympathize with your struggles in breaking your team into your school's environment. Last year we were able to rely heavily on our coach and founder who has done this for a number of years before starting our team.

So I send my deepest sympathies, and if there is anything that I can do to help, please feel free to contact me. Like everyone says, FIRST is definitely the hardest fun you will ever have. Just don't forget, and don't let your advisor forget, that no matter what it is supposed to be fun! :D

Steph