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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
We carpool (vetted mentors drive) to all events
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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
As is typical with private schools, parents / mentors drive the carpools. Drivers have to meet certain insurance requirements, and student parents have to sign permission slips, but otherwise it's SOP.
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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
Our transportation is relatively simple as it's always the same. Any adults we can get carpool the students to the event. Driver's need to fill out a form with the school to be able to transport students but that's about it. We'll usually prioritize adults with lots of seating to cut down on the amount of people needed.
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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
For events within an hour or so of Slidell, we carpool/caravan, or by pre-arrangement, let people show up on scene. We rented a bus for CMP which carried students from 3946 and Mandeville (2992); most of the mentors carpooled, including one group which pulled the trailer.
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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
Our official events require student transportation by school bus or a district approved coach bus vendor. Coach buses get a special inspection before students can board. There's a required ratio between school approved chaperones and students. Chaperones must be teachers, with rare exceptions when additional teachers cannot be recruited.
School advisors/teachers cannot drive students under any circumstances unless they are the parent of the child. Off-season or outreach events on weekends or after school hours only can be organized as parent outings where parents provide the transportation, but students cannot be excused from school for any such outings. Teachers are not therefore officially in charge of anything. School advisors can transport robot and gear, on their own time and unofficially of course. |
Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
Keep in mind this will also depend on rules, culture, etc. in your particular area.
I would say that the rule of 3 is good, and that parents should sign some kind of permission slip that specifically says they give permission for their child to be driven by mentors in mentor vehicles. I would also want the team to track who's driving, get a copy of their licenses, and for long trips, keep a master list of who is in what car and how to contact them in case of breakdown or "got lost". My concern would be for liability. Say I drive some students in my personal vehicle and I get into an accident. Will my insurance question why I was driving students and whether it was for a "business" purpose rather than a "personal" one? I have had this chat with my insurance company before and they told me that as long as it was clear that I was volunteering, they wouldn't see it as a "business" case. You may want to check with yours. What if the unthinkable happens and parents decide to sue because of my accident? Who is liable? The team? Myself personally? Am I willing to take that risk? Should the team take down a list of authorized drivers? Should you keep copies of all drivers licenses? What if they drive crappy beater cars that could be unsafe? Will you hold them to stricter driving rules (e.g. Do NOT EVER drive above the speed limit?) Questions to consider. |
Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
For official events (competitions and such), our school has an arrangement with a local van rental company for discounted rental vans. Sometimes personal vehicles are used if there aren't enough students to fill a rental van. Teachers/Mentors/Parents may drive (as long as they are at least 25 years old) and are covered under the schools liability insurance. Students are not permitted to drive themselves to official events and must turn in a permission slip signed by parents (and also their school counselor if they will be missing school to attend the event) prior to departure.
As for transporting our robot to events, one of our Nexteer (sponsor) mentors checks out a company truck to pull our team trailer (at no cost to us). Our school district does not provide busing for events, so we would have to pay the entire cost of the bus+driver for the entire day it's used if we chose to use school buses. The only times we have not used rental vans for transportation was when we went to Worlds in Atlanta, we flew down and either walked everywhere or used public transit (we always got a close hotel). Another local team was kind enough to transport our pit equipment (as they took a tour bus and had extra room). For more informal local events (demos, team parties, etc.), we generally treat it as a "just show up, we don't care how you get here". For transporting equipment, we arrange for a mentor or parent who has a trailer hitch to pull the team trailer or just transport items in the back of someones minivan if there isn't much stuff. |
Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
We are two private schools so we have access to little 14 seat buses. They are awesome. For almost all of our small events we take fewer than 14 students so we load the robot and things in the back and every one gets in and off we go. This setup has allowed us to do a lot things that would be far harder with out access to a bus.
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Re: Team Transportation to Non-Events
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