[Allison K]

Our requirement is that "students must remain in good academic standing in accordance with their parents expectations." This is a talking point at both fall parent meetings, is a line on the parent page of the FRC team application, and then is confirmed again prior to selecting drivers and pit crew. There's a school requirement as well (minimum 2.0 and not failing any classes or something similar) but it's way more lax than any of our parents' expectations so it's not particularly useful for much of anything.

Primarily we (mentors) try to maintain a united front with parents so that they know we'll back them up with whatever the family rules are for each student. Our expectations are made clear to prevent any room to play games (i.e. - students going to a parent and telling them "but I have to do xyz it's mandatory" when it's really an optional meeting that they just want to go to, or a student coming to us and saying "but my mom said I have to do homework tonight so I can't come to meeting" when really they just wanted to go socialize). We haven't really had any grade related problems so far (only going into our second season) so we haven't had a reason to flesh out policies on academic performance yet.

Super conveniently, their first semester ends before winter break so we go into build season with a brand new semester and thus we aren't balancing week 3 of build with finals. It also gives a nice basis for comparison between a semester with just general meeting once per week, and a semester with build and competition season. It seems like so long as everybody maintains their performance between second semester and first semester we're all satisfied.

I suppose the answers to your questions are...

1) No. It's based on family expectations rather than a hard number.
2) It's not. We communicate with parents pretty regularly though.
3) None specified.