To rent a classroom for a day at our public high school its costs exactly $20.68, but seeing as I also work for the school and have keys and know the alarm codes we've never had a problem. We primarily work in our university's shop anyway.

that is so rediculous. paying to use your own school sounds really weird. we use our school but have to ask permission sometimes for the weekends. yet our school still doesnt really give us any recognition at all.

jessi

Somehow, I doubt that the schools who make the FIRST teams pay to use their own school have no problem opening up the gym so that the basketball team can practice.

Yes, we have the same problem. We pay these "janitors" to keep the school open for us and they don't do a %%%% thing. But of course when there's got to be a basketball practice on a Saturday, of course they're there "free of charge". Somehow I don't think its right.

Yes, I know we should let it be publically known but for now, we're doing more research on the subject and then presenting our case to the principal and the board of education. I call it discimination against a team.

We still haven't paid the bill for the janitors services on the weekends lol!

If you have a teacher with a building key to doesn't make much sense to require a janitor to open up on the week end.
We haven't used our school on week ends because we built the robot off site. But we use the school for meetings at night all the time. It's never been an issue. All the clubs and teams use the building at night.
I second the suggestion someone made to take the issue to the school board. A FIRST team should not be paying if sports teams are not paying.

Unions
 

No, it doesn't make much sense, but that's the way it is due to labor unions. The custodians for many school systems have labor unions and part of the contract is that if anyone is in the school, a custodian must be present. I really don't like it, but as with anything involving a union contract, it is a very difficult thing the change.

I know that if the school is not in use for other activities, our team has to pay the custodian's wages for the hours that he/she comes in. During crunch time we have to work on Sunday which means time-and-a-half, which can add up to big bucks.

Our school has a machine shop but no more teacher, so we are allowed in there on saturdays from 8 AM until 2:30 PM since the maintenance staff is at the school and the alarm is off. Our school never asked us to pay, but we dont have the option of any more time on the weekends.

i am beginning to appreciate that my team isnt from just one school more and more. Lucky for us, we are allowed to use a duPont facility. we meet every sunday from 1-5 and i went for over 7 hours a day on the friday, sat, sun, and mon before shipping(i had a four dy weekend).

i dont knowhow your principal cold even ask you guys for the money because i assume that your team is the most educational extra-curricular activity at your school. if its public, i am sure that theirwill be someone above your principal you can talk to

After all this talk, i went and asked how much it would cost to use our school over the weekend, it would be free unless we wanted to use it on sunday, then we too would have to pay time and a half to both jantitorial and security staff... i guess thats how it goes. Luckily visteon lets us build our bot at their facility.