Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

So on Twitter I follow Adam and Grant from the Mythbusters (I didn't know Grant was a FRC Mentor lol) and they tweeted this story about team 1432. Located here. Does anyone know if they have worked that out with the school or are they still in trouble? I hate when situations like this happen.

Re: Interesting story
 

The Dealing with Disappointments thread has been following it too. Unfortunately it's not sorted out yet.

Re: Interesting story
 

So far, we have 2 threads discussing this situation but there isn't any recognition of it in the title, using key information. Perhaps a mod could modify the title of this thread to reflect the FRC team name and number that is central to this story. That would also be helpful to the 1432 team members and others who would be searching CD for threads/information.

Jane

Re: Interesting story
 

Sorry about this. I did a search for 1432 and didn't realize it was under the disappointment thread. Can a mod do something about this? Thanks!

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Rock on, CD mods. Great title modification!

--
I'm glad to see the communities come together in support of this team. It serves as a great role model for what loss means and what can happen because of loss. Facebook, Twitter, and Chief Delphi are 3 resources that I am aware of that are getting this story out there. Richard Sisk listed some of the alumni of the high school in a thread in FB. I hope he or someone who read that, will post the information here. It showcases the importance of alumni/team alumni and what they have done with their lives after high school/FIRST. Paying it forward means giving back. This is a beautiful opportunity for the team and for everyone who supports FIRST and FRC. Really beautiful.

Leaders of 1432, please let us know how we can best help you.

Jane

Re: Interesting story
 

Our team has been in similar situations before. We too have no staff on the team. To say it bluntly, it sucks. We got lucky however...

Our head advisor, "Mike" as we call him, has spent his past 7 years on the team gaining the respect of our school district.

The biggest thing I can say to that team is: Stay respectful. Know that they are still in charge, and what they say goes. HOWEVER, this is your game. You're the FIRST masters, not them. They want to look good to the townspeople, and to the state. Show them otherwise. Shutting down a FIRST Team for small, fixable reasons makes them look bad, very, very bad. But no one knows that yet, show them!!!! Even by simply going door-to-door teaching about FIRST and getting recognition--it helps. Talk to your local government officials, ask how to get a petition going. Don't forget, the school runs you, but the town runs the school. You gain respect from the town--you've won.

As for the money and supplies--that is a very fine line, but unfortunately, there is little that can be done once the line has been drawn (outside of playing your cards right). My team learned a while ago, that, because we are a school team (yeah, we straightened that one out last year, we're no longer a "club" on paper) whatever is bought with the team's money, or donated to the team, becomes property of the school. So you have to be careful as to what is property of the team/school, and what are "loaned items from students and parents" ie) Our team laptop is "on paper" as being my personal laptop that I approve of the team for using.

I hope other teams can help them with this, it truly stinks...

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Some famous alumni from Franklin HS in Portland OR..

From http://www.publicschoolreview.com/sc...chool_id/67940

Douglas Engelbart- Inventor of the computer mouse
Howard Hobson- NCAA basketball coach
Steve "Snapper" Jones- NBA
Legedu Naanee- NFL Wide Receiver, San Diego Chargers
Johnnie Ray- Singer
Richard Unis- Oregon Supreme Court Justice

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

We had a similar issue two years ago with our OCCRA team. The previous OCCRA faculty mentor moved, so we had to find another, and nobody would do it.

Since the position was equal to that of a coach, the school allowed us to find someone who wasn't a teacher to lead our OCCRA team. The school pays them a very small amount, same as they do to coaches.

As for the money thing, ours school takes all of our remaining money at the end of the year (June ish). We send it all to FIRST to pay what we can of our registration fees in advance to avoid this problem.

Hope this helps.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Heard about this a few weeks ago through the Oregon FIRST grapevine. Very upsetting. We came very close to not being able to afford to participate, so it is gut-wrenching to see other teams in the same boat.

For any 1432 members reading this: are there any local FRC teams who would agree to let you share their shop? This may be something you've discussed already, or might not be practical, but those Beaverton teams make it work :) [2898 and 1510]

I can't remember whether our Regional Director was how we heard about this, or just the local teams here in Corvallis. If you haven't done so, I would recommend sending info to our RD and asking her to forward it to the Oregon teams. I know there are so many people here who'd love to help you.

Best wishes to you guys.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Another thing to remember: Your team does NOT have to be sponsored by a school. Talk to your donors, see if they would be willing to let you use their shop. If there's a parent or another adult who is avaliable, you'll be free and clear.

We had another team lose their sponsorship and workplace, so we opened our shop and lab to them. It was a great experience for both teams, and the other team ended up being regional champs! For all the local teams, help 'em out! Having another team in the workspace leads to many unforseen benefits.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Just remember that even if you're not an official school club/team, you can still be that school's team. You can negotiate with the school to use on-campus facilities for maybe a small fee, but if you're self-sustaining with fundraising and the school has no legal control over you, you are in a position of power to deal with the school. They will always want to brag about "their" robotics team, and will be more willing to make concessions if they think you can walk away with your high tech team whenever you want. Remember that if you put your school's name on a registration form or the robot, you are giving your school publicity and respect in probably the only international competition your school participates in, so make sure you get paid back for this service.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Closure on this issue, glad to hear it was resolved:
today Oregon FRC teams got an email from our Regional Director, in reply to folks who'd been asking how to help team 1432:

'Wanted to let you know Franklin HS team 1432 is alive and well. They have moved to a new location for the 2011 season where they can build, were able to gather their tools and robot and we were able to have their FIRST grants and Intel donation funds sent back to FIRST and Intel respectively.

Appreciate everyone's concern as it shows what a supportive community FIRST is, but we can let this one rest and prepare for a very exciting 20th anniversary season!'

I'll post this on the other thread too.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Thank goodness they were able to get everything back! I'm glad to hear that this was resolved as well. *sigh of relief*

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I'm glad to see this resolved, too. 1432 was my first FRC team, back before my school had a team. I spent two years with them and my sister, and my dad is still a mentor for the team. It was frustrating to see this go down.

They just got their stuff back today (YAY). Plus, there are a few misconceptions people have gotten from the article published, which they've made the effort to clear up on their website here: CLICK ME

It's still unfortunate they weren't able to keep their grants, but at least they haven't been left completely in the dust.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I imagine it wouldn't be too much of a problem to write letters to the groups and companies who sent the grants and explain what happened. I'm fairly confident they wouldn't object to sending them to the new/old group.

And to the principal at Franklin H.S....

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

The issue I had with this at all was one little contradiction, that may just be a misunderstanding, or may not.
From the letter: "administrators were unable to find a staff advisor."
From the team's website: "We had at least 5 teachers willing to be our advisor but when the went to the office to sign the paper they were talked out of it."

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I'd personally call it "spin". In one of the other threads relating to this topic, someone commented that they wouldn't be surprised to see a 180 with appropriate spin.

Second only to policy is making yourself look good, in a bureaucrat's/administrator's eyes. It's easy enough to "forget" that you talked teachers out of something, if that is indeed what they did.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

"Talking them out of it" and "explaining the commitment required" are two versions of essentially the same explanation. Perhaps there were teachers interested in helping, but when the administration explained the commitment the teachers were no longer that interested.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I'd like to point out Team 1432 has more than a dozen mentors, many of them engineering or programming mentors. The official "teacher" mentor would have been more of a formality. If they weren't interested in actually mentoring it probably wouldn't have been a problem.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Does the teacher have to be physically present at the school (for legal/liability/insurance/policy reasons) when the robotics "club" is meeting?

If so, then during build season that is a rather large commitment of time.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

They must have a staff member present while meeting at the school, which does make sense of course. Though I don't know if that's required to be the official staff advisor, or if they could just sit in their room grading papers.

Besides, I'm sure after a couple build meetings, the staff advisor would be interested to keep coming.

Though considering the team has already moved out, it doesn't matter any more. I was just pointing out an inconsistency.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I think that's a pretty fantastic leap of faith. I don't know how often that particular team meets, but I'd hazard the average FRC team meets at least 8 hours a week? That's another 20% commitment that the teacher isn't getting paid for (or even with a stipend, isn't getting adequately compensated for). On top of that, I'm sure being the school liaison comes with its own host of headaches of when you can be there, when you can't, when you must clean out by, extra meetings, etc. You've gotta love it to do it, and I think the size of FRC indicates that there are a lot of people that do love it (at least for the first few weeks! :ahh:) . But not everyone does, or even has the time to try. If the full time college student workload is close to the full time teacher workload, I totally understand why they would not want the commitment.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Although we all are delighted that 432 has landed on their feet, it's not a moot point. Gaining insight through discussion of what may have happened in 1432's situation could be useful to other teams going forward.

That would depend on their personal situation (family life) and expectations. Build season can be a very large time commitment - more than the potential staff advisor(s) might have had in mind when they stepped forward to inquire.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

If the discussion continues to circle around pure conjecture on the part of those who don't know the full story, then it can cause harm to the team and to the school they were a part of. One example of that was the title of another thread in CD and how it was worded. Sometimes, we judge when we should not and we place value on rumors or bias. To my knowledge, no one from the team leadership has posted. I think the story has moved on and we should stop playing guessing games with the situation.

Jane

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

I appreciate your concern Jane. I don't advocate "circling around pure conjecture" or "placing value on rumors or bias" or "playing guessing games" either. So it seems we are on the same page there.

In order for your post to be more helpful, it would be instructive if you could clarify exactly what aspects of the following dialog you are characterizing that way:

12/3 05:51AM Foster posts Form letter sent out by the school

12/3 06:27AM Basel A identifies an apparent discrepancy between the letter and the team's website

12/3 07:19PM GaryVoshol explains that (note: I personally found the above explanation quite helpful)

12/4 12:35AM onecoolc suggests that "The official teacher mentor would have been more of a formality"

12/4 09:13AM Ether points out that if the teacher has to be physically present at the school (for legal/liability/insurance/policy reasons) when the robotics "club" is meeting, then during build season that is a rather large commitment of time. (see Gary Voshol's earlier post)

12/4 11:14AM Basel A suggests that since the team has already moved out, it doesn't matter any more.

12/4 01:56PM Ether suggests that the discussion has provided some insight and could be useful to other teams.

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

If there is value in a discussion regarding the importance of teachers with regard to the topics of sustainability and stability, then that would make a valid discussion in its own thread. Regarding this thread, 1432, and their situation - the quote that I've included in this post suggests that we can let the topic of that situation - rest.

Jane

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

A personal clarification from team 1432 - Many thanks to Deb Mumm-hill our regional director, and tireless supporter through out these difficult days.
At this time it is true that the school, after weeks of deliberation has decided that the team's property was different than the clubs property. Thanks to major financial contributors to the regional FIRST program, KOIN Television interview and the article in the BEE and of course an unknown number of teams offering support to Team 1432 by way of contacting Portland Public Schools, and the Franklin Administration.
Until we get a 501-C-3 we will be unable to get any grant money over and above the registration fee for the Oregon Regional. These funds are essential to building the robot and keeping our program going. The team continues to explore the possibility of using someone else's 501-C-3 but as of this date we have not found anyone willing and able to do that for us.
The response from the FIRST community has been very gratifying. We certainly didn't expect the number of blogs and tweeters and the response was beyond our ability to keep up with. Many thanks to all of you.
About the matter of returning to the school, if you are interested you can go to team 1432 website to the "He said She Said" and see how the school considers it resolved and our rebuttal including e-mails from all parties involved.
As the coach of this team I've spent more time in the last two months working on this issue than the time I have spent during any of the seven build seasons I have been involved in. I cannot in good conscience suggest to the team that they entrust their team's money and resources back under the school's control.
Team 1432 will participate in the Oregon Regional 2011 and we will continue to try to personify Gracious Professionalism.

"Never give up, never surrender"

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Coach,
It is our firm hope that your program can go on. Good luck to you in the future.

To those others who are still unsettled about the role of the schools in First activities, I must point out that all school districts are different. Their administrations, school boards, staff and even the insurance regulations placed on them by their providers will make their situation different than your own. And I might add it will vary from year to year and administrator to administrator. While this particular school/district/administration has decided to abandon it's First team for now, they may very well see the benefit of that program at some time in the future. Advice given to me a long time ago by one of my mentors seems to apply here. "Never burn your bridges!"

Re: Interesting story re: FRC1432 in Portland, OR's loss of school system support.
 

Just a quick note to let every one know that the S.E. Portland Rotary has stepped up and volunteered to be our 501-C-3 this year while we write our own 501 and get it processed. Our grants are now secured. Many thanks to all for your tireless support and help during these very trying times. Watch the website for further information. There is to be a follow up story in the next Bee. We'll post it when they make it digital.



www.team1432.org