Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Before our team went on the trips we were approved by our school district that they would be counted as field trips and we wouldn't have to make them up. After returning from nationals we encountered a problem. Our team is under 4H as a rookie team, not the local career center like the other local team. The head guy of the school district has approved the field trips but the principal and administration at our school is being difficult. We have been fighting this battle for 3 weeks and now at the 11th hour they have given up. All three seniors on our team (including myself) are high honor graduates, (we have GPAs of 4.25 or higher) and one of us is in position to be the valedictorian. All three of us are in danger of not walking on graduation day. I just want to know how the rest of the community feels about this, why can't 4H teams be excused from school but the career center team can? We all went to the same place, and yet only we are being punished.
Thanks,
Samantha

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

So what options do you have? Your first couple of sentences make it sound like you just need to go a couple extra days. Your last couple of sentences makes it sound like honor students might not graduate?

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

I suggest circumventing the administration and talking directly to the school board.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Wow. That's terrible.
As a teacher, and new to running a robotics team, I had to learn the ropes when it came to getting trips approved. Luckily the district folks are very supportive of us having a robotics team (maybe having Boeing down the street helps).
I've still had to deal with people in our office questioning the "excuse" for the absence, but I got an assistant principle to approve all my requests.

I'd say you're best bet is to have any effected student write a report about the educational value of the FIRST Robotics and event attendance. Set up a meeting with an AP or the Principal and present your reports. If that doesn't sway the school admin, go to the district/school board.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Give us the e-mail address of these folks to send them a barrage of support letters for your students? It's scenarios like this where bureaucracy has turned to idiocracy. I often say "If schools were in business, they'd be out of business." Now I don't know your students, but based on what you're telling us, this closed-box thinking of your school administration seems like they need to see the light of day on FIRST robotics.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Our trips are approved by the school board directly so that the students receive excused absence. Although we have students from other schools that usually choose not to travel as it isn't considered a field trip by their school since the program isn't directly associated to their school.

Seems to me you, in essence, have 2 separate teams, the 4-H team and the Career Center Team. Therefore the rules are different. If your 4H team is associated with the school, then I would assume you would need to have a separate approval for that team. If you are not connected to the school then I would agree that the absence's would be unexcused since you aren't an official school associated team/program. It would be the same as missing or having you parents sign you out of school. Sometimes the rules aren't what we like, but we need to learn to work with them while, maybe, at the same time working to change them.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

OK, I've highlighted the issue. Seems "The Head Guy" and the "Principal and Administration" need to get together (Real Fast) and iron this out. The Principal needs to do research on FIRST and the benifits of it and give you all credit where credit is due.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Sounds like the board & the principal are in a turf war. (I am sure the principal is calling it "Academic Integrity"). Unfortunately the fix involves a time machine. You need to sell the principal on the educational value of the program for next year. A big advantage if your does Chairmans stuff in addition to building the robot. Don't expect the principal (& others) to do the research on their own.

How do I feel? Work missed should be made up. Time should be allowed for this. The absences should be excused following the same policy as other field trips & sporting events. They should turn the basketball gym into a double FRC field.

We have run into the the problem at a lower level with our principal strongly supporting the team & some teachers being very rigid with assignment & test dates.

Sorry since is not much help for your predicament.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

I would suggest that you get your parents involved quickly and have them talk to their elected board members. Parents hold a lot of weight in the school system. (As well they should... they are the ultimate customer of the school... or more correctly, the students are the customers....)

More school systems should think about things from this perspective...

By the way, next year get this all set up before hand.... it is necessary to jump through all of the hoops before you go to an event and miss school. Start in the fall...get the required permissions then....

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

The National Association of Secondary School Principals has a "National Advisory List of Approved Student Contests and Activities" and FRC is on the list. (The Program Guidelines are here.) I don't know if it will help convince your school's principal and administration, but you should make sure that they know about the list. Making sure that everyone else involved (parents, school district, 4-H organization, etc.) is also aware of it is important too. The fact that the trip was approved by the school district before it was taken is important to point out too.

We are no longer sponsored by our school district and we have students from several different schools (and school districts). We have successfully gotten absences excused for competition days, thanks to our logistics mentor working closely with the various administrations.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Our team is from multiple private schools so we have not had this problem. For clarity I would, and maybe others would as well, appreciate you highlighting exactly what the issue is. Specifically, why has your team not been approved. Is it because you are 4H and not technically school? Is it because FIRST is not "academic enough" or something like that?

I apologize if these are questions I really shouldn't have to ask but I have never had to deal with this being at a private school.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

It wouldn't surprise me if the issue is liability.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

As far as I know, the "head guy", or Superintendent, trumps the school admin. The Superintendent is the boss of the administration - if he's approved it, that's it. If a school administration is going against his actions without approval or some other process, that's big trouble for them.

As for unexcused absences... It depends on what the school counts as unexcused, how unexcused absences are made up, and how students are notified of unexcused absences.

In our school district, students are notified within 24 hours of their unexcused absence so a parent can call in if they forgot. They have the trimester to make them up, but it's once you have more than 4 unexcused absences that problems start (1 class with 4 unexcused absences = F). The way we make them up, if need be, is by staying after school for an hour. The school is also lenient about what counts as excused - if a parent calls you in, for whatever reason, you're excused. If that's your district's policy, as stupid as it sounds, you may have to have the students' parents call them out every day of the competition next year. Stupid things have happened - a sub has marked me unexcused absent for a class before because he marked the absent person whose name was above mine present and switched us. Had I already had unexcused absences, I would have had to make that absence up after school, no matter how unfair it was.

Now, how is it different for your district? Are you not notified than an absences is unexcused until the end of the term? In that case, the school is, in my opinion, pretty much making an attempt to screw its students over. Is your school strict about what counts as excused? (Ex. only if the student is actually sick or has an appointment or funeral, etc) It kind of sounds like it.

So, for this to suddenly be a problem now, there are a few combinations of factors. It could entirely be that (a) your district has a terrible excused absence policy, (b) your school does not have effective methods of making up absences, and/or (c) you were not notified the absences were excused with enough time to make them up, which is crummy (keeping it clean). Otherwise, if you knew for months and didn't act until graduation came up, that would be crummy of you. However, this is hardly the typical action of honor students active in FIRST. That's not to say some FIRST students aren't lazy, but you get the point.

I don't know if your situation is like that above, but there must be some way to work around it. I'm not for skipping class. When I miss class due to illness (or robotics), I always make up for lost time. And it sounds like you're the type of students that will work their butts off to get caught up in class once an absence happens.

Talk to the Superintendent and school board. Mention any of the points above if they apply. Assert that despite the Superintendent's approval, the administration is not cooperating.

Bring the list or at least a URL.

Affirm that preventing smart and ambitious seniors from walking at graduation because they were at a FIRST event is wrong. WRONG.

(I wouldn't mention this since the reaction might be negative, but in my opinion, FIRST is much more of a learning experience than years' worth of traditional school.)

I'm not for one pressuring a school district this way (though it is so much nicer when they cooperate :rolleyes: ), but it really looks like you have no other choice.

So, the long and short of it... I don't know the unexcused policy, but it sounds pretty bogus. Talk to school board and superintendent. I would give the admin the list, but it looks like they're beyond help.

C

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Hopefully things will be cleared up quickly.

In the event that it all goes sideways and the principal says, "you can't attend the ceremonies." Take it in stride.

It sounds like you will all have some much more significant graduation ceremonies in your future... being banned from this one will give you a great tale to tell your grandkids, especially if you handle it with class and style.

I'd suggest building a little mock stage on the nearest piece of public land to the entrance to the building where the ceremony is being held, putting up your own grad banner, and inviting the media to see three top students who were banned from grad for attending a world robotics championship cross their own stage. Get some of the other team members... perhaps some of the community mentors... to dress up and give you a diploma. Then go play robot frisbee golf.

You might not only end up making the principal realize that they are being an idiot, thus clearing the way for your younger teammates to attend robotics competitions in the future, but also get some great publicity for FIRST and your team.

And have that great story to tell your grandkids (well, and your roommates at university...). After all, almost everyone goes to grad, but how many people get banned for doing something good?

Don't fight bureaucratic morons... embrace them! Humour and publicity will take care of the rest.

Jason

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Wow, as an engineering mentor, I didn't know this list existed. I will be pointing this out to our other students and schools as we are picking up 2 more students from different school districts next year.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

From my vantage point, the school district is misusing time and effort to indiscriminantly enforce rules that were likely put in place for a completely different set of circumstances. Unless the school is handing out As the way FRC teams hand out buttons or students are diverting valuable resources away from those that really need it, then high performing students are not the problem. Leaders should model intelligent decision making rather than just dictate it from a bully pulpit.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Oh Boy Samantha! I've been EXTREMELY lucky that our principal didn't mind (although I wasn't taking many classes that were hard) when I went on my "field trips" that were all 4-H related. This year alone, I missed 16 days to 4-H events (National 4-H Conference, FRC Outreach Events, FRC Regionals, & the White House Science Fair). Last year our team was part of our school, and they allowed those days as "field trip" days I believe. This year though, we are a 4-H Team, and we (students from 3 different districts) have to miss school and be "absent" for FRC events. I believe that 4-H teams endure these problems all across the us.

I suggest you guys present to your school board about the things you guys have done while on these "field trips". Although the school board will probably still count them as days gone, like they did for me, they probably will not be as critical that they were days that you were "gone", since you were still learning so much.
I believe that until education catches up, they should allow students x # of days for out of school educational events (such as FRC regionals/champs, or other conferences). Students can learn so much more than they could ever learn in school by attending conferences taught by true professionals or events like FRC that gives hands-on experiences.

I hope this helps you out Samantha! If not, I would see if your leader/county 4-H program coordinator could write a letter to the board in regards to your issue.
-David

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

A couple of thoughts. First, do not deluge the school or school board with emails about why they should approve the absences unless every other recourse has been exhausted and you actually aren't walking at graduation. Even if the tactic succeeds they will resent it and it could easily cause problems for the team in future years.

As for the why in this case, I think Jimmy hit the nail on the head. A career center based team is part of the school, and they can approve it. A 4H team is probably not and the students being absent from school counts against the school and school district in terms of their evaluation by the state and federal governments. The error was likely on the part of central administrator who approved it in the first place. What probably should have been done is to have the parents for the 4H team write notes excusing their children to go to the competition ahead of time. Most schools have a process for kids going on vacation and getting pre-approved. That process generally is created with non-school sponsored "legitimate" activities from the list jcbc posted in mind. But remember that very often the schools are not making up the silly rules, only enforcing them.

My first suggestion would be to take the approval you initially got to your central office (I am assuming you have already tried this with your principal) and ask "How can we work this out?" Trust me no central office wants to see some of its best students not walk at graduation. And they really don't want the bad press that can go with it. So ask what can be done and see if a workable solution can be found. It might be as simple as having all of the involved parents write a note. Or even as simple as someone at the central office approving the absence and appealing the unexcused status to the state.

As a side note, I used to do tons of business travel for my work. Rules with easily foreseeable and really stupid unintended consequences are in no way limited to schools.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

This is really great advice. The thing about graduations too is that they aren't for you, they're really for your parents.

When I was a freshman in high school, one of my good friends missed a significant amount of school to ski competitively. At the time, the school had a policy that 15 missed days for any reason in a semester would automatically result in failing all of your classes, regardless of your grades. His parents stood up to the principal, and when the dust settled he had a 4.0 taking straight honors classes. Needless to say, he passed (and coincidentally is graduating from MIT next weekend!). I hope your administrators come around too. :)

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

What I find interesting about your post is that you have the opportunity to be on a school related FIRST team, yet you choose to be on the 4H team. The administration may view this similar to someone playing a club sport rather than the school's sponsored team. While you see it as we both went to the same place, you certainly took different routes. Another thing you failed to mention what you're attendance policy is...how many absences vs unexcused absences. Did these members already have ten absences from school and these just put them over the line? Your parent has the right to pull you out of school at any point, but the school ultimately makes the decision about excused v unexcused. Also, I question the rookie status of a team that has multiple members who may have been on a FRC team before. You did not say whether this group participated in the school sponsored team at some prior point. Your school may not want to set a precedent for future years that choosing that non school team is acceptable. (Just playing devil's advocate).

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

The head guy of the school district has approved the field trips but the principal and administration at our school is being difficult.

As rlowe said this is where you need to approach this issue. You need to have a parent/coach/mentor get involved and call the 'Head Guy' and ask him to help you resolve the situation. Just remember, this could have an impact on next year as well.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Ok, so here's an update on the situation... My mom and I did some digging and we found a state law that says that a student must attend 120 hours of a year class and 60 of a semester class to receive credit. Our school is set up with "blocks" of 90 min each, 4 blocks in a day. With 180 days in the school year, 90 are spent in a semester class, so 90 days times 1.5 hours equals 135 hours built into the system. Take 135 minus 120 and you get 15 hours you can miss before you "fail" a class, or by our school's system, 10 blocks of that class. For semester classes the math adds up to 5 blocks missed for that class. This wonderful law was provided for us by the "head guy" I spoke of in my original post. Now, with that new rule, we represented our case to the principal. (Just for reference, our school's rule is 7 blocks missed for a year and 3 for a semester class, so this gave us 2-3 extra blocks to work with) The days from robotics are still not excused, however, this brings my blocks to make up from 40 down to 21, a much easier number to achieve. Even better news, he is allowing us to use classes where we are excused from for seat time, for instance I recovered 3 blocks today and have brought my needed time down to 18. And the best news of all, the "head guy" has agreed to pay for any of the after school attendance retrieval sessions that we attend to, up to the number of blocks we missed from robotics. There are 4 sessions next week, from 3:30 to 6:30, so 2 blocks a session. Each block is $10 so he's willing to pay $80 for each of the students on our team that needs the attendance. Now I'm not going to be greedy and attend those alone just to make him pay, I'm using my regular school time as much as possible to make up. After all, he gave us the loophole in the school system that is allowing the three seniors to walk :)

Now to answer some questions I saw:
Yes a few of our members were once a part of a team under a school district. However, we left the team(s) (there were two) because the school district made it nearly impossible to do anything outside of build season. So no recruitment, no chairman's, no community involvement, nothing. The second of the two teams folded because the head teacher of the team was arrested for drugs and the head district leader of the team was hospitalized because of a brain tumor. Not a good year for that team. We started this rookie team as a part of 4H so we could be away from the school districts and all their red tape. Because we were able to do the work we wanted to do, we pulled off a rookie all star at Peachtree and went to nationals as a result. This just shows how much of a pain the school district is being, we were successful with our methods and yet we are being punished for it.
Here's another, our parents did all send in a permission slip for the school about the trip before we went on it. It was approved by the school before we went, but when we got back it was taken back.
The reason our team was suddenly not approved was because we are 4H and not the school district team, but like I said, this team was formed to be apart of the school district so we could run a team like it should be, year-round.
Here's a comment about the plan to hold our own graduation ceremony, it would be really fun and would make a point, however it wouldn't give us our authentic diplomas and would be little more than a showcase.

Well there seems to be just enough time left in the year to fix everything, sadly I won't be done with school until right up to the day we graduate, but at least now it looks like the three of us will walk. Any more input on the situation would be great, I love hearing how other teams sort out these types of issues.

Re: Going to a FIRST event is apparently not a field trip
 

Samantha,
Thanks for the follow-up information. I’m still confused why there is an issue with the process you used. It was the correct approach and meets all state requirements. I used the very same approach to get son’s FRC events approved.

South Carolina state law does require a certain amount of attendance days per year. The amount of unexcused absences varies with the length of the course as you indicate. The key word is “unexcused.”

Here’s the policy from your school’s student handbook:

“With approval from the principal, students may be absent for a portion of the school day or the entire day for school-sponsored activities such as field trips, academic competitions, athletic events or other extracurricular activities. The school will not count the student absent from class/school in such cases.”

So it doesn’t matter if FRC fits the definition of “field trip”, which is a school sponsored event, or “other extracurricular activity.”

Here’s one definition of an excused absence from your school board’s policy:

“Absences for parental approved, pre-arranged, non-school sponsored trips or activities including recognized religious holidays (pre-arranged absences must be approved by the school principal prior to the absence)”

So it doesn’t matter if your FRC team is sponsored by the school or 4H, the policy is identical.

Good luck!

David