School Board Problems
 

This is our first year trying to go to 2 competitions. We just found out that we have been denied permission to go to the second competitions. How do the other school systems justify the two competitions to the school board. We are still trying to get this reversed so any info would be greatly helpful.

Thanks

Re: School Board Problems
 

You're asking the wrong question. Instead try thinking about "How do school systems justify the cost of FIRST?"

If you can't come up with enough, let us know and we'll put up a few links to all those "What does FIRST mean to you" threads and you can just slam that on their desk.

EDIT: I just remembered that I think some other team had this exact problem last year so they posted the school board's phone number in a thread here and all CDers were invited to call and tell them why this particular team should be allowed to go. I don't remember if it worked or not. Seems like a risky proposition. (If I was remembering something else and subconciously made up this story, please let me know. That's what I remember but my mind could be playing tricks on me.)

Also, Readhead Jokes on these boards may be able to help you out. Not to be volunteering other people but I know she is good with this kind of stuff.

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Or, you could show them a nice little piece of work like this:

One event that shaped my life was the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Regional Competition that I attended in March of 2003 in Phoenix, Arizona. I had already been to one regional competition in Los Angeles in 2002 and it was a huge thrill and a truly exhilarating experience. However, this Phoenix competition was different. Teams signed up from all over the country coming from as far away as Indiana and Michigan. Since the competition was in its first year, the regional coordinators did everything possible to make it the best event that it could be. The Phoenix competition really meant something special to me and my team. We had never competed outside of LA before. I personally spent several days obtaining the financial support of local businesses, and numerous other days planning for the event. In addition, the number of hours that I put into building the robot was just truly astounding. When the FedEx truck arrived to pick up our crated robot at the end of the six and a half week build period, I knew the dream was becoming a reality. Forty-six days of my life were stowed in that crate, and my team and I would see our efforts come to life in the middle of the desert of Phoenix, Arizona.

When I arrived at the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum in March an awkward feeling came upon me. I had usually only been in such a place as a spectator, not a participant. Hundreds of high school students met in the middle of the desert to hold one of the grandest celebrations of science and technology of all time! I was one of them. All the faces around me seemed so familiar, though I had never met them before. I rejoined my team and we opened the crate. Our robot was there and ready to go; all we had to do was flip the power switch and get ready for some tough competition. Walking through the pits was incredible. I was able to interact with members of other teams and talk to them about things I thought was a language of my own. We discussed drivetrains and power curves and pulse-width-modulation signals; things about which I didn’t expect to hold a conversation. At the end of the competition we placed higher than we ever had before, seeding third and reaching the semifinals. Although we didn’t win, I was overjoyed at what we had accomplished. A group of 14 high school kids and a few dedicated mentors had raised over $15,000, spent six weeks building this marvel of a machine, and traveled hundreds of miles to meet up with other people who had done the exact same thing. Winning the event was not the most important part of the competition to me; it was the experience. From fabricating parts for the robot to developing strategy plans to making friends from many states away, the experience of FIRST Robotics has truly shaped my life.

Re: School Board Problems
 

The problem that they are having is the time out of school.

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oh come on....you can learn 1000x the amount at a roboticcs comp then in HS


maybe you should write something up that explains the physics/ calc behind your robot...the busness stuff about getting sponsorships. the leadership in the team, the social networking and the free advertisements that the school gets for being at the comp

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Sorry for the multiple posts but things like this make me so mad that I can't gather all my ideas at once. This problem you are having reminds me of a spotlight that every day I find so true: But, I suppose that should be left to discuss another time.

EDIT:
People in my neighborhood didn't even know there was a "Clark Magnet High School" I used tell them where it is and they'd swear they drive up and down that street everyday and there is no school there. Other people think it is a junior high, which it was 30 years ago!. Anyway, my point is that robotics is the only exposure my school has period.

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School board stuff is mysterious to me. We have an administrator who handles that for RUHS. MCHS now claims we're not school sponsored at all (they're going thru major funding problems) altho MCHS captain had all school required meetings on campus and submitted all paperwork.

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Perhaps you are asking for too much time out of school. Both of our regionals are "in-state" so require only "overnight field trip" status approval. We usually leave early Thursday morning for West Michigan regional, and return Saturday evening. The other regional reqires no approval because it is in our home town, so students are only required to obtain "Planned absence" forms which must be signed by each of their teachers beforee they are allowed to miss school. Nationals happens to fall over spring break, so again only requires overnight fieldtrip approval. Our team does, however, go and present (usually) to the school board concerning FIRST and how it affects us. This is a good approach, when an entire team shows up at a meeeting, is respectful, and delivers a heartfelt presentation it is hard for them to say no. Perhaps mention to them that you eill require all travelling team members to obtain permission and homeowrk from their teachers BEFORE leaving.

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Matthew:

Like most things involving schools, proof is important. You can talk to people until you are blue in the face and not change their minds. The best method of gaining school board support is to have as many members as possible attend regionals. Plan ahead: schedule a regional that is during your spring break, do not take the entire team to the Thursday practice session, remind the school board that you are a team.

Ken Loyd
Team 64

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We are going to the closest regionals that are around us. Except for the Atlanta regional where we are going to the South Carolina regional. The time out of school will be six days for the two trips where we leave on Wed. I wish we could have two groups traveling but the regionals are at such a distance that that is impossible with the limited funds we are working with. Thank you for the help.

Also does anyone have a list of how FIRST matches up to subject areas in the school. This might help if we can show that while they are actually out of school the are not out of the learning experience.

Matthew

Re: School Board Problems
 

Well, if they continue to drag their feet in the ground, make them re-imburse (sp?) you all the funds needed to go and stay at the second regional. I think that might make them re-think their decision.

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And thus, this brings me to....the ever lovely Impact area on the FIRST site ;)

http://www.usfirst.org/about/impact.htm

Hopefully there's something there for you to use.

I would go into more about dealing with school boards (because I had to deal with a rather difficult one myself), but a lot of it has already been said. But...I'd like to see you write something in your local paper, play it up that you're not allowed to go. Maybe that will help :)

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Ahh.. I just accidentally erased everything that I have posted.


We had the same problem here. For an out of county or out of state trip, it has to be approved by the "Area Learning community". What our team did was give several presentations to the Princiapl as well as the rest of the administration. Once we got the Principal to understand why we wanted to attend two regionals, he did our "fighting" for us.

We also threw around the fact that band was just approved for a week long trip to Colorado for a competition. They are gong to be missing a week of school, and we are on a four by four schedules. That means it is equivalent to missing two weeks of regular school.

Let me know if there is any way that I can help.

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Have you thought of splitting the team, 1/2 to one event, 1/2 to the other? This would be hard on our team as we have one teacher full time but there is another that could travel if we had to reduce our numbers.

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If worst comes to worst, I heard that "robotics flu" has been going around recently, and I wouldn't be surprised if some team somewhere were to get it, especially if burdened with the stress of having to deal with an uncooperative school board.

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Also does anyone have a list of how FIRST matches up to subject areas in the school. This might help if we can show that while they are actually out of school the are not out of the learning experience.

Matthew[/quote]

I just wrote a bunch and it disappeared. Here I go again.
I sounds like you have a major communication problem. I feel your frustration, as last year we had one of those bottomed out years where everything seemed to go wrong, including having all out of state travel canceled at the last minutes due to the war. There went Philly....

Make it a priority to request a presentation with the school board and superintendent in the late spring so they know what you are about.

We had the head of our school board (and president-elect of all the school boards in Maryland) write us a testimonial this year. It is wonderful and talks about what a fantastic learning experience FIRST is, and he addresses various skills that are learned. I would be happy to email it to you if you feel it might be helpful in the short run.

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Matthew, you can be nice to the school board; or you can force them into letting the kids go.

The problem with school boards and FIRST is that they see it as a vacation club. When I was on my high school team in Enfield CT we couldn't get as much funding as we would like because the board members didn't see the educational value.... I'm not sure if Buzz ever fixed that problem.

Here's what I suggest: explain the program and give an elaborate presentation about FIRST. Explain why it's important. The build season creates the candle for technology and the competitions ignite the inspiration.

If that doesn't work have a parent from the team represent their child and come with a paper signed by all the other parents. The paper should say something to the effect, "Us parents find FIRST of educational value. We believe they should be desmissed from classes on competiotion days."

If that doesn't work- teachers can take sick days and so can the students. It's not the best option, but at least you'll be at the regional.

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you can knock one day off the trip by having an advance team go on wednesday night, uncrate the machine on thursday and have it inspected - that way, most of your team could stay in classes thrusday, leave late in the afternoon, and be there friday morning for the beginning of the seeding matches - you would only need a handfull of students there thrusday morning.

Do you have a corporate sponsor? if so, does the school board have any concept of how much time and money they donate to this program?

Does your school have football or basketball teams? are they only allowed to play in one game each year?!??!

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Ken, you're absolutely right. All through my life I have seen sports heros walk out of class early becuase they have to ice up before a game. It makes me sad :(

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They best you can probably do is attend a school board meeting. Ask your superintendent if you could possibly put on a demo for you school board and the community to see. Every year we attend 1 meeting just to let them accually see what goes on!

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Matthew,

Here's what we did: Get the school board President to go with you to an event. We did that our second year and ever since, we've never had a problem getting board approval for our actions.

Do you know if any of the other Huntsville City Schools are having a similar problem? I think Team #34 (Butler High School) is going to 2 regionals (but I could be wrong.)

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Our first competiton is at Wayne State so we just have like filed trip exsue for that and it's only 2 days. Then for San Jose we have 4 days exsued. The Championship is during spring break and we come back late either Sunday night or early Monday morning. They told us that the school dristict only approves so many days that we can be off. But they really don't like us going anywhere for some reason. If any group wants to go on a filed trip like for community service they don't want us to go, so we just get it approved with the principle.

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Being a FIRST mentor for 2 years now and a former school board member, I can speak to all sides of this issue. A couple of questions before I jump in. Does Alabama have curriculum requirements established by the state board of education? How much, if any, funding does your district provide to your team? Do you have a rival school that participates in FIRST? Do your athletic teams get extra time off to travel to state or regional championships?

After I was elected to the board, the teacher who organizes our FIRST team invited me to attend a FIRST regional in Toronto Canada of all places. As soon as I set foot in the Hershey Center in Mississauga, I was hooked. I knew I had to be involved in FIRST. (Key #1 - Invite a current or former school board member or perhaps your school district superintendent to attend a regional. If they see it, they too will love it!!!)

It didn't take long for me to figure out that the FIRST process hit on many key points of our district curriculum. In PA our state dept of education has established curriculum regulations. FIRST robotics hit on a number of areas of science and math curriculum. (Key #2 - If Alabama has similar regs, show how FIRST can help meet some of those regs.)

We (Millcreek Twp School District) are a suburban school district. We compete in all things with the city district (Erie, PA) we surround. They have a FIRST team, so you better bet we will have a FIRST team. (Key #3 - Do any of your local rivals have a FIRST team? Does your district want to be left behind?)

How much funding does your team receive from your district? In this era of tight budgets (from local to federal), your team may be viewed as an unnecessary expense. If you are or can become financially self sufficient, that is a very big plus.

If I can be of any help, please contact me and we will make your school board see the error of their ways!!!!

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We are allowed to miss as much as we want. We go to 2 regionals and nationals. We perform presentations, and travel out of town, during school, all the time. We have 11 students that will miss as much as 10 days of school and some (myself included) miss as much as 14 days, all school excused. How do we do it?

1) Students are not allowed to travel if they have a D or F on grade checks. The administration, board, other teachers, and parents love this.

2) We have taken, all expenses paid, the superintendent, 2 principles, and a boeard member to nationals over the past 4 years.

3) We have perfromed school board presentations and robot demos.

4) We have helped start 8 FLL teams,in our district, over the past year.

5) We have included other classes/clubs in the school in the operations of the team.

6) We do not ask for any money from the district. We are 100% self sufficient and "FREE" to them. We are all the good of a team and none of the negative.

Heck, this year our district gave us $2,500 and the board is going to pay for the superintendent and a vice principal to attend nationals. We also have a robotics class now.

It has taken 6 years to achieve this level of support. But if you are professional in everything you do, you will get there. If you need anything else, let me know and I will be glad to help.

Shawn
Teacher/ Team 60

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Matthew....what is the position of the HS principal regarding the second regional? I am not familiar with your school size and participation in outside activities, but I would bet that other clubs, teams, etc....will miss more than six days devoted to their respective activity. As the school administrator, this issue is my responsibility for Team 343...not the teachers. I would discuss this with the principal, teachers, and parents...then request to appear before the school board to make a request for them to reconsider their position. One thing for sure....as a high school principal, I have to link the Robotics program to the curriculum...we have implemented a Pre-engineering curriculum (Project Lead the Way) in conjunction with the University of South Carolina. This curriculum is linked to the State standards...Thus, competition is part of it. Generally speaking, parents tend to exert the right pressure...to bring about change. By the way...we certainly want you to attend the Palmetto Regional...it is going to be great...brand new facility, lots of energy and a great make-up of teams competing...most from out-of-state.

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To answer some of the questions we are not funded by our school system. We have had to raise all of our funds by ourselves. I do not get a supplement for doing robotics but I do it out of having fun and knowing what the students can get out of it. I do have a supportive prinicpal that is helping.

We are a technical high school that pulls from the other five high schools in our county system. We struggle with the fact we do not have the high school community to help support our program. We have been working on communication of our program and it looks like we have a ways to go. I am compiling information on how much the sponsors have given and how much money our kids have raised to pay for these two competitions. We are fighting to go to this second regional and at the same time trying to find the final funding for the bus travel which as right now we are short. I am hoping that the school board will notice how much work has been put into this robotics team and how many buisnesses have supported our endeavor. I wish there was a closer regional that I could take our school board members so they can see that it is not small robots moving in a high school gym but a professional competiton where over 800 high school students and engineers come together to but theory into practice.

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Is it a requirement that the students attend your technical high school to be a member of Team 1028? Our technical center coordinates Team 343 that is composed of students from four high schools, but they do not have to attend the center to be a member of the team. Many students are involved in many things and subjects that prohibit them from attending...not they they don't want to, but just that they do not have the time. Point is...Team 343 represents the four high schools and not just the technical center. Therefore, I have the support and encouragement of an additional four principals...lots of say in what goes on. What is the price that you are struggling to raise for the bus fare to go to the second regional?

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We also represent the entire Madison County school system. most of our students are from our tech center but we do have others from the high schools that do not take any classes at our school. It is open to any student in Madison County.

Currently we are short around $3000 for the bus fare from our school to South Carolina. We have raised all the other funds needed to attend.

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sanddrag Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew_H
How do the other school systems justify the two competitions to the school board.

You're asking the wrong question. Instead try thinking about "How do school systems justify the cost of FIRST?"


With our school boards we go to the meetings where they put our trip approvals on the agenda, we show up with our team shirts on so they notice us, and by showing up it shows them that we care and we would like approval and they give it to us. And to sanddrag a lot of schools don't have to justify the cost of FIRST because they don't give any monetary support to the teams. I know RAGE for one gets no support monetarily from any of our 5 schools. Rockville High School does however allow us to build at that school.

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Good news. It looks like that after further review our school board is going to allow us to go to South Carolina. It is not offical yet but we have talked with most of them. They did not understand how much money that sponsors have put into the Ubergeeks. Thank you all for you ideas they really did help. We are going to try and make sure this communication problem will not happen again.

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Number 1 is the same with us expect instead of a D or F it's an E and you can't get lower then a 2.5.

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Huh. We had an upset recently, and both high schools got a wake up call about how much time, money, effort mentors give, and the dedication of students and parents from both schools.

Then I learned that the RUHS school board was motivated on their own to ask that our robotics' summercamp banner on the school fence be given prominence over the recreation dept banners, so it was moved at their request.

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I'm glad to see this thread and now knowing our team isn't alone with similar issues. I was asked by our teams main advisor to post this on here. What we what to know is if team 237 can unify and work with other teams so we're (we meaning all teams with similar issues) aren't stepped on. As Jessica mentioned in post # 12 in this thread " we are dealing with a difficult one". Jess and I are talking about the same school board.
I have a few questions for other teams but first I'll give some background on my team.
Team 237 Sie-H2O-Bots was formed in 1998 and is based out of the Watertown Connecticut high school. We currently have roughly 30 students and 14 mentors. Two of the mentors are teachers at this school, one of them is the teams main contact. Our team is 100% self funded, no money from the board of ed or town for that matter supports our team. Our team is also a 501c3 organization (tax exempt) and has been since it's creation. The problem is the board of ed does not and has never reconized our team. We pay for the schools use, meaning custodial coverage, from our own team budget. Our team relies strictly on donations and when you're handed a $2000.00 bill at the end of the six weeks it hurts. Sports and any other organizations get to use the building for free. Our team also has had over $100,000 in equipment and services donated to the school because of our team. This includes machinery for the tech ed department, computers, 10 stations of Solid Works for the cad room, and countless other stuff. We got all this stuff for the school to use also, it is not strictly for our team. We also have had problems where they almost weren't going to allow our team to travel. Students have to keep passing grades to be on our team. We have countless other problems and could go on here forever but I won't.
What I also want to ask is:

Does your team build your robot at your school?

Do you have restrictions on building use?

What procedures do you have to go through to use this building?

Also if you do use the school,

Do you have to pay to use school facilities?

What amount of monetary support is your school providing your team?

How do you handle donations made to the school on behalf of the robot team?

Any insight, help, and/or answers are greatly appreciated. Our team feels we have more than our share of red tape. We also feel we have jumped through more hoops than Barnum and Baily.

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Jay, will you be coming to NJ? I have lots to say but need to get ready for tomorrow. Otherwise, I will post after this weekend.
If you will be in NJ, find me at Team 007.
robomom aka , Jenny

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Unfortunately I will not be at Trenton, I have to work. My team will be there though. If you want to you can speak to other members of my team and our teams main advisor, Carll, will be there. I am interested in what you have to say. It wasn't until I saw this thread and mentioned it to my team did we realize we weren't alone with issues concerning school boards. We also always invite members of the school board to attend our meetings but it's rare if they show up or even take interest.

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Yah, please come over and talk to us. I will be there and i will help you find Carll, the team contact, and Barbara, the other teacher on the team or ill talk with you. Whatever you feel compfortable with.

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We get no funding from district or ed foundations. We are 501c3 org. We don't pay for school's use. We build the robot out of the school's building. We're restricted to a small area downstairs, can spread into construction technology area when school's out but must "clean back" to our area at end of robotics day, school wouldn't let us use any of their computers, thus our team didn't have computers til sponsor lent them to us a couple of years ago. We used to have school official open the building every time, but they've learned to trust us with a key now. All money donations to our team are handled by a school foundation. All equipment donations are kept in our small area.

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I am the team leader and teacher for team 1083.

Does your team build your robot at your school? - YES!

- I have a code so that we can work on weekends, and when the school is not normally open. We are allowed to work at the school until 9pm; We were given special permission to stay at the school over night a few times, and work until 11pm other days

Do you have to pay to use school facilities?We do not have to pay for school facilities unless the school is closed. (We have to pay for custodial use when we host our tournamentt during the summer)

Luckily for us, my administrator is on the board for the reginal committee, and is very supportive of having the team. He does a lot of the "fighting" for us.

What amount of monetary support is your school providing your team?
Last year, our school principal wanted to start the team, so she gave us $10,000 to get started; this year we did not get anything

How do you handle donations made to the school on behalf of the robot team?
We have an internal account at the school, and I deposit all of the checks we get as donations. I write a receipt for the donor, and just deposit the checks. It is like having a little bank inside of the school I can then write Purchase Orders on the money we have in our account.

I hope this helps. Belive me, we run into a lot of red tape. It took a lot of convincing for the school to allow students to work past 11pm on a school night. We gave a lot of presentations (the students did) and it has been a good experience so far.

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I'm going to do three things: Answer your questions, write up an explanation of how OUR team operates, and then try to relate that to what you can do.

Do we build our robot at our school?
Yes, but this is the first year we have been graced with such a privledge. We've been around for 4 years, and we have jumped many many hoops to get our on-campus building (which I actually like less than the previous alternatives ... it is tiny!) The first two years we had a room at our corporate sponsor's location, last year we lost that sponsor and managed to borrow some space in the back of a warehouse.

As for the other questions about the school building, we do not pay for it and there are few restrictions on it, other than we must use the standard student parking, which is quite a walk (there is only faculty parking near the building).

Our school system provides no money directly to the team, however they do pay an undisclosed stipend to the teachers that lead the team (they do this for all major clubs). And yes, our school system allows the donations made specifically to our team to remain in our control.

By no means has it always been this way. Here's the general saga of Robotics at Arab High School: When it first started, it was competition with other school systems. Our superintendant wanted us to be the "technology powerhouse" of the county and refused to let us mentor or attempt to start other teams. It has taken until this year to break this mentality within the higher-ups. This year we finally managed to get a team started at our "football rival" high school, and we have mentored them successfully. It was not until we gave a presentation to a group of prominent county leaders who were very impressed with our collaboration that our principals and superintendant saw the benefits of this mentorship.

Up until this year, there was a general notion among the school board, principals and superintendants that our team didn't really provide the learning that we claimed. They thought that our team was nothing but engineer-driven with kids watching. (Boy were they wrong.) We proved them wrong in that regard this year -- we lost ALL of our corporate sponsors (NASA and PMI), yet I think our robot is the most competitive it has ever been. This year's robot is 100% student built and only one engineer has ever set foot into our building (the parent of one of our team members).

It is only now that they really see the educational benefits of our program. We used to be nothing more than a source of bragging rights over the other school systems.

It is imperative that you convince your school board of the educational value of FIRST. GET THEM TO A REGIONAL! PAY THEIR WAY! I recognize how hard this is, none of our principals or superintendants have ever come to a regional.

Recognizing this difficulty, this year we have invited a member of the local newspaper to accompany us to regionals and nationals. He has promised us a spread filled with details of his experience. We hope that this will be a good influence on the school administration that refuses to come to competition. (If you want a copy when it's published, I'll gladly send you one).

In conclusion, I can't imagine why any school would not want to support FIRST if they really knew what it is. The problem is that many administrators and ignorant and apathetic. Figure out how to break through that, and you'll be on your way.

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hey! ive been reading this whole thing, nervous about the fact that before today no one spoke to the school board about the one regional that team 1389 is attending (chesapeake). today i found out about it and it turns out this is what we are doing...

-every student gets a note signed by parents saying theyre allowed to go to the competition and miss 2 school days for it.
-attendance office gives little sheets to all attending to be signed by all of teachers and "administrator", who's the vice principal

it seems as if there are no problems. does getting absenses excused work differently where you are?

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We are two rival schools on one robotics' team. RUHS considers us a school related team, and our absences work the way yours does. MCHS isn't quite claiming us as school related this year, and is in such financial trouble that they are billing sports teams for the days their students miss school. The MCHS parents know about the dilemma, and maintain that their students will be going to the competitions, altho we have yet to determine how the school is going to respond.

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Am I missing something here? How is having some students miss school for a few days costing the school board? And does this mean that your team or the parents of the students on your team have to pay? Sounds like the MCHS school board is "punishing" or discouraging the students for wanting to attend competitions.

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I'm not familiar with all the details, but you know how if it's not an excused absence, then the school loses federal funds of around $48 a student for each day? Because of their financial problems, they're trying to bill sports teams for the loss in funds, and "asking" parents to pay voluntarily when their kids are missing school.

I don't think it's about punishing or discouraging the students for wanting to go to competitions. It is about feverishly backpeddling for money because of major money mistakes the district's made in the past - it's all been in the papers.

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I put up this post since I'm getting questions from a lot of people on how my team is doing so far. After my team won the New Jersey regional (see my sig) we got a lot of press coverage in town, the board of ed has now requested us, as a team, present at thier monthly meeting. They also requested the robot but unfortunately the meeting is the 22nd of this month and the robot will be on it's way to Atlanta. We're planning on doing a Power Point presentation with video and photos. I don't know how long our meeting will last or even why they requested us there but we will definitely be going with as many team members as possible. I'll also post an update sometime after the meeting.

Jenny (RoboMom007) I just want to thank you again, along with my team, for your help.

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Bring your 2003 robot. ;)

If you want some practace, go to Sparky384.com and we have a movie in our media gallery of Sparky 4 meeting Govn. Warner. I'd go and check it out.

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I think it's sort of discouraging about the lack of support that a lot of our teams get. We needed some money this year cause our sponsor dumped us a couple years back and the school didn't get any at first. Thankfully, some cooler heads prevailed though and thanks to the hard work of our coach and some good administration members, we were able to get some travel money. I am always just a little disappointed that a lot of schools can spend thousands of dollars on athletics (the lights in our stadium were replaced because they were "too bright."), but they don't give nearly as much to the robotics teams who are actually doing educational things and things that will build them for the future though. Overall though, I am okay with our board. I am allowed to go to 2 regionals and nats this year which is missing about 6-8 days of school.

Re: School Board Problems
 

Well Good News Guys...

As of a few days ago (during our STL regional) we got a phone call from our principal saying that we had been approved for our second regional in S. Carolina... it really lifted a burden off our shoulders. Thanks for everyone's help on this matter!!

Re: School Board Problems
 

Jason, great news. I'm convinced that most of these problems are because of communication or miscommunication. These are really busy people who care about education and I think one of our responsibilities is to make it easier for them to understand what FIRST is about.
Let us know how the meeting goes, because I think there is a lot to be learned from your experience.
Cheers!