[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by rsegrest

And while I know you did not intend the comment the way I initially read it (I in fact had to reread it twice to appropriately understand what you were trying to convey) please know that my students and mentors are equally invested in what we do. If we required students to pay for their own travel, meals, etc. I would lose probably 2/3 my team due to financial issues and those are the very students we are trying hardest to reach.

Correct. I didn't mean any offense by that... just stating how _we_ look at it on 3481... just sharing _our_ internal thoughts and approaches to see if that's helpful to other teams.

Originally Posted by rsegrest

For instance, in order for the absence for competition to be excused we have to register it as student travel. Because we are a team recognized by our school this means we have to take yellow dogs or charter buses (charters we would have to pay for out of our budget) students are not allowed travel in personal vehicles. The yellow dog costs us $3.00/mile and the driver is $9.00/hr. The driver must be paid 24/7 for the time they are with us because that is considered 'on call' time in case of emergency. This is district policy and non-negotiable.

This is the first year we are not paying student meals and even that is being called into question by my district because we are required to pay for the bus driver's meals. As far as covering mentor's hotels we always saw it as our way of saying thank you to the people who dedicate significant amounts of time away from their families to help us succeed.

We are affiliated with Brandeis HS/Northside ISD and we don't have the kind of restrictions from the district you shared. Your restrictions certainly change the travel calculus BIG time--I learned something I didn't know, so thanks for sharing that info.

--Michael Blake