Texas teams, need some help
 

I just discovered today that our local school board policy does not allow private school and home school students to join our FRC team. Are there any Texas public school teams that allow private or home school students as team members? If so can you post or message me as to how you conquered this hurdle?

Thanks in advance,

Mr. B

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

We too almost ran into that problem.

We come from a very well off town called Brookfield. By having students from other towns both from other schools and home schooled student, sponsors have been more willing to donate to us. With out these students, many businesses would assume we have enough money since were from Brookfield.

We explained this to the school and said if they want to kick those students off then the school should give us the money that we would be losing.

To this day, and they always have, we get 0$ from the school. Dont know if this helps for your situation. But lesson is: Tell them how these students benefit the team

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Same, we've had a few home-schoolers who wanted to join the FRC program but couldn't join our team because of district policy. Since we would like everyone to have the opportunity to be a part of FIRST, we've talked about starting a homeschool team.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

We have a very open membership policy for our team and there have always been one or two home-schooled students on Texas Torque. The non-school district members of the team have been responsible for their own transportation and lodging for events.

Most school districts in Texas get their board policy from the same source, the Texas Association of School Boards. Which section of the board policy does having a home-schooled student on the team violate?

Mr. Rip

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

I think it's because the district can't be held liable for anything that happens to an outside student on an organization directly associated with the school. Our team is technically a club under the high school. I can't speak for 4063 however, they may have some other issue.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

I know we had a couple of home school student on the team when I was there. I don't think we had to do anything special, but I was only a student. I'll see if one of the teachers has anything to add.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

I thank you for the quick replies, but I hope we have more than 2 Texas teams that will respond to this need. If you know of any other teams, please have them contact me.

Thanks again, looking forward to seeing y'all in Dallas and San Antonio.

Mr. B

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

We do not have any home school/private school students on our team, but our school district does allow anyone living within our school's admission zone (in our case, the entire district) to participate in extracurricular activities. This was because there were a lot of private school students wanting to participate in the other schools' football programs. So theoretically, we could take students from home schools or private schools, but we have yet to have anyone from there apply, so we don't have anyone on our team who don't currently attend our school.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Last year I asked the school administration if a kid from a neighboring private school could join our team. I was very surprised to hear the answer was no. I was thinking this family pays the same taxes I do and would thus be granted the same opportunities.

Unfortunately, this issue lands in a legal quagmire. While families do have a constitutional right to send their kids to a private school or homeschool them, they are not guaranteed equal access to the public school. Each state handles it differently... there are 10 states that do grant equal access (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) but for the other 40 (including Texas), it's typically left up to the individual school districts.

My hope is that more and more states will soon be joining the equal access side, but for now the best path is probably to understand why your district is opposed to allowing other kids participate and then propose measures that will ease their concerns.

Public school access by state:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issue...ual_Access.pdf

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Brian, we have had only 3 home school kids over the past 8 years. I didn't even think to ask if it was OK. Oops.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Was that during the don't ask, don't tell era or the ask for forgiveness later period? Knowing you Bruce, I'm sure it was the here's a kid who's interested in STEM/robotics, yes we have a place for you on our team ideal.

Honestly, I didn't give it a second thought until one day we were discussing liability if someone got hurt. Thought it was best to check it out.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

The home school and private school students we have on 3481 Bronc Botz are only on our FRC team.

We have 3 FTC teams with only Northside ISD students so far.

Our HS/PS students ALL have formed their own FTC teams which we consider our sister teams... they've formed total of 3 teams.

EVERY HS/PS student that we've allowed to join the team are students who have sought out and approached us because they have a passion and extreme interest in competition robotics and they don't have the means/resources to form and maintain an FRC-class team.

I believe it to be _cruel_ treatment to turn away _any_ student who is passionate about competition robotics.

--Michael Blake

P.S. To deal with possible legal issues, non-Northside ISD students stay with their parents when we travel, and pay the full-cost of their portion of transportation (they are not subsidized by district $$), and their parents fill-out and sign release forms.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Mr. B.-
3999 was founded for the sole purpose of allowing ALL student s to participate. The local district has only one school that is doing FRC and they do not allow outsiders. Shadetree has kids from 2 different districts and Home School kids as well. There are actually some students that attend the HS that does FRC but choose to participate with us. The open policy has worked for us so far.

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

Would you consider yourself a public school based team? Do you receive any school district funding?

Re: Texas teams, need some help
 

The DiscoBots expanded our program to homeschool students in 2010.
We also have multiple high schools from Houston ISD feeding into our program.

Many of the financial decisions are easy because we are primarily supported by a non-profit organization created by the team.
We decided early on that relying on the school for finances was not a viable option for sustainability.

The only funding we get from the school is travel and hotels. Homeschool students are not financially tied to any of the public school funded travel. Homeschool students are responsible for paying their way or will have our non-profit organization assist.