[Meredith Rice]

The Firebirds are from a private, Catholic, all-girls high-school. I know that in particular our team struggles to bring in more members because we are a private all-girls school. However other issues with running our team, that I see would prevent more private schools from starting robotics teams would be a)size of the school and b) funding from the school district. Our school has around 550 students and most of us are very active with extracurriculars, as are our teachers. So because everyone is already very busy, it is difficult to attract participants. The issue of small class size is more often the case with private schools I think. Another issue we find is we have no monitary support from the school, even when we have a very great need. Some public schools are able to receive some money from the school district, however our school would not receive any for a robotics team.