[gblake]

TLDR: In my opinion, without knowing the local motivations and resources, readers can only guess at the right answers to your question. Those answers are roughly as likely to be wrong as they are to be right.

In these situations, I am a fan of trying to ask the right question, before choosing among solutions.

And, to ask the right question(s), you have to know everyone's purpose(s)/goal(s).

Why should an FRC team or VRC team(s) exist at these locations? Why not both? Why either? What do the schools want to accomplish through either program? What do you want to accomplish? What do the existing team members/supporters want to accomplish? Peel the proverbial onions by asking "why?" until you have gotten to the roots of everyone's motivations.

Once the (often diverse) goals/motivations are all well-known and are put into a coherent picture, its *then* time to discuss with the people involved how they can best use the finite student-time, mentor/teacher-time, physical tools, software/computing tools, dollars, parent-time, feeder-programs, floor-space, etc. to accomplish (or consciously de-emphasize) *all* of them.

There are many, many inspiring ways to skin the cat of introducing many students to STEM topics and careers. Find out which seems best for these situations by pulling on the threads, and developing a complete plan/suggestion. Then, your arguments will have some traction and some buy-in.

Blake