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Unread 28-10-2015, 18:34
scaredutensil scaredutensil is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2015
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Team falling apart-- any advice would be helpful

I am posting anonymously on behalf of my FRC team.
At the beginning of this school year my FRC team had a change in leadership and our new coach had a very strange agenda. To preface this they are a elementary school art teacher whose child is was on my team. When they took control of the team things immediately began to change, freedoms that we came to expect were lost, application essays to join the team were introduced, and all student leadership positions were dissolved. While these things are troublesome to students on their own, the real kicker came in with the creation of a rookie team. The students were not involved in this decision and were given misinformation about how the teams would interact.
Students, as could be excepted, were outraged at this sudden and seemingly unnecessary change but our coaches assured us that this was a positive. We almost believed them until the news came in that all of our coaches were leaving our team to coach the rookie team. At this point I knew it was bad news. Luckily we found a new coach to fill the void and have limped on for a while. Lately, however a lot of conflict has come up about the new team and its coach, our ex-coach. Firstly, my FRC team was not allowed to get any new members this year and anyone interested in joining had to go onto the rookie team. Also four of our members, including our ex-coaches child, were taken onto the rookie team. They were promised leadership roles on the new team and that's when it started to look like a ploy. My ex-coaches child is an unremarkable student with mediocre skills at best, not someone who could become a team leader or potential dean's list nominee with all the more suitable candidates on my team. Not only was my team left crippled by the lost of people and resources but my ex-coach expects us to spend our time, which we have been trying to rebuild our mentor and sponsor base with, to do stuff for the rookie team. Obviously my ex-coach does not any say in how we run our team but still interjects into everything we do "to stay in the loop". Lately people have left the rookie team and they barely have enough people to stay alive.
Now getting to the last straw that drove me to ask for help. Today I saw that my teams grant and sponsor form had been copied onto the rookie team's google drive(a file sharing system) and that they have copies of our unsubmitted grant applications. It's now is evident to me that the rookie team has been using our info to raise money and to get corporate sponsors. To compound this issue my ex-coach got mad at me for removing them from our google drive, which they were only on because they used to be the coach, and blew off questions I had about the issues.
Honestly this is getting to political and heated and my team can't function when our grants, members, sponsors, mentors, and even coaches are taken and given to preserve a failing attempt to bolster someone's child. Maybe I am overreacting, but my response seems reasonable due to the circumstances. Any ideas about how to minimize the damage would be very helpful. Thanks.
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