Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

I'm Jacob Powers from Team 1684 we have been in F.i.r.s.t. for 2 years now and our school teacher sponsor left and we are having issues finding a new teacher to help us with this year and might now be able to have a team this year and me and few other members will not be able to compete in our senior year and help new members if there isn't a team I honestly do not want to loose this program at my school any advice at how we can get it through the administration or anything pardon the horrible grammar

Re: Help
 

Hi Jacob,
Teams can run without a full time teacher mentor, if the school district allows this. You need to find someone in your school system, principal, superintendent that wants to help your team stay in F.I.R.S.T.
If your team is funded already, it should be easy. If the funding comes from the school, it will be harder.
We need more information.
Do you have outside sponsors? How is your funding? Parents willing to step in?

HTH

Re: Help
 

Who is your mentor team? Get in touch with them, they should be able to provide immediate help for you. There are tons of Michigan teams - contact those around you, and I'm sure they'll be of assistance as well.
Hope to see you at Nats next year!

Re: Help
 

Sorry to hear that. We just lost our sponsor here at Morristown, but last year we merged with another school, so our program will keep going as long as there are intersested kids.
I don't know what y'all's situation is, but here's my two cents-
Maybe y'all could find another school nearby that could help you out. Our merge did wonders for our team. I'm from a small school, and we merged with a much bigger one, thereby bringing in more ideas and resources.
If that won't work, does your school have anyone at all that could help out? I mean, if you Seniors know enough, the adult would only have to handle the funds and travel/competition arrangements, and you students could do the engineering and everything else (it would help if you at least had an engineer to call if y'all had a question you couldn't figure out...) Our team is going to be run that way this year, and probably from here on out. To me, we learn more when we're the ones figuring it all out, and that's the whole point of this thing. (It is also a lot more fun...)
Keep us posted.

Re: Help
 

Check and see if your mentor is required to be from your HS?

A few years back the team I was on lost our teacher/mentor. A 3rd grade teacher from the city stepped in to be the school districts representitive for the year. He was not from our suburbs school district, but he was in the same county, so it was acceptable to the school.

Also, inter-school teachers, like Boces, might also be acceptable to your HS.

If necessary you might consider merging your team with another HS team for this year, to ride out the loss, while keeping your team more or less intact.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

If you know what you are doing I would ask a priciple to help all u need if you know what you are doing is someone to handle paperwork and go to teacher meetings I am in the same situation right now too.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

for some school districts the school representitive (teacher) must be present whenever the students meet ( even if the team site is at a sponsor company facility)

and that includes traveling with the team, attending the regionals and championship (if you go)

and even simple things like team dinners - if its an official school team event (meeting...) there has to be an employee/representitive of the school district present.

For a FIRST team that is a very large commitment for one person to make.

If you cant get one teacher to take on the responsibilty, maybe you can find several who are willing to break it up.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

Jacob, I contacted the FIRST Midwest Director about your schools situation a few weeks ago. Recently she contacted me to let me know she is aware of the situation and is willing to work with your school, and help your school continue to have a FIRST team.

Things for you to do.

1)Contact Mr. Gutenschwager at Lapeer West. Ask if he has any suggestions for a new team leader. Ask him if East is not able to put a team together, can you be on the West team (I know it is not as good as having a team at your school, but it is the next best thing).
2)Set up a meeting with your principal and ask him about a new team leader.
3)Research the State of Michigan money that will be going to FIRST teams.
4)PM me for more thoughts about how to get a mentor and sponsor, I will be happy to speak with you.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

Ask any teacher at your school, and I mean any. Since I've been on the team we've had a computer science teacher, two math teachers, and now two special ed. teachers be our main sponsors. Teachers don't need to know anything about engineering, or anything with technology even, they just have to be willing to help you with paperwork and represent you (so they do need some enthusiasm for what you're doing, even if they don't understand it).

As others have mentioned, check on if district employees can assist your team. This includes office secretaries, administrators, and even janitors. In our district the team must be headed by a teacher, but any district employee can be present for meetings and travel with to competitions.

For build season, gather a large group of teachers to help, since I'm assuming a teacher must be present for meetings at school (that's the way it is for us). A single teacher very easily gets burnt out. Ask if teachers would be willing to do just one or two meetings, or even part of a meeting (if you run a 5 hour meeting, two teachers splitting the shifts). We basically tell all the teachers we ask that they just have to unlock the rooms, grade papers and write lesson plans for a few hours while we work, then lock the rooms when we leave (and this is all they have to do).

We've had this problem for a while now (we're on our 4th generation of teacher sponsors in 7 years), and this solution has worked quite well for our team. If the students in charge are willing to do alot of the work, being a club/team sponsor is really not that large of a burden.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

thanks i will try everything i can I really love robotcs its one of the best things i have in my life i look forward to it every year thank you all for the help

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

Jake,

The very first thing you should do is contact your local school committee members. I suggest calling them individually, setting up a meeting with any of them that are willing ot sit down with you and your existing teammates. Make your pitch to keep the team going, show them pictures, videos, data that supports that FIRST is a good thing thin to keep around. Plenty of good material is available in the white papers section of CD, the media section of the FIRST website and I'm sure someone has taken pictures from your team.

Make sure you tell them success stories from your previous years competition. Things like -- how many students got into their first choice of colleges because of their participation in FIRST, if any student decided to stay in school because of the team, decided on a career path because of the team....those type of positive personal stories always work well. If you can convince them from a personal level to keep the program going, they can put the admininstration/teacher infrastructure in place.

In other words......play the political game, get involved and keep them involved.

Hope that helps.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

we Are in we found a parent to take up the Team so we are in Thank you everyone

Re: Help
 

I am a new mentor, but FRC teams are very supportive. If teachers are not familiar with FIRST, create a CD of past events and the kick-off to show them. Once I saw the kickoff last year I was hooked. If you are close to another school, your school teams can combine. In Osceola County, we have teams that are working together, and I know Exploding Bacon is parent lead. Don't give up-help is out there.

Re: Help: How do we get a teacher to help? (was: Help)
 

And my advice was going to be see if you school will allow a parent or other adult to act in that "official capacity". That's what our team did a few years ago when we faced this issue. Now we have three teachers who come three different nights a week and several adults who can "chaperone" the room when a teacher isn't there. These adults can be people who work for our county's school system (teachers from other Fairfax County school, bus drivers) or an adult who has gone through a securty check (fingerprinting), TB test, and filled out various forms to get a badge to be an "official" volunteer (everything has to be official).

Since you've found a parent to take up your team, my advice now is that you should try to find some more parents or adults to help like this so that the parent doesn't become burnt out or if there's a conflict with the parent's schedule, you won't lose any meeting because there will be other people to step up.

Heidi