[Gabriel]

Maybe I'm missing something big, but it only says you have to report a "red" completed finding to FIRST. I searched the volunteerselect site, but I couldn't find any information on what a red finding is. Apparently a red finding includes more than just convictions, but neither FIRST nor volunteerselect specifically tell us what a red finding is. FIRST then reviews each red finding and determines whether the individual can be allowed to be a mentor. However, we aren't told the qualifications. Will FIRST disqualify anyone with a drug qualification 20 years ago? Obviously no team leader wants a sex-offender on their team, but who gave FIRST the right to decide who gets to be on our teams? We aren't volunteering for FIRST, we're volunteering for the individual teams. Lets say the background check determines that someone is a sex-offender, shouldn't it be the job of the team leader or the school to determine whether they want that person to participate? What if I've worked with a guy for 8 years and the background check shows he was convicted of something 20 years ago? FIRST isn't going to bother to get to know the guy, know if he's a good person, if the conviction is bogus, whatever, they're just going to look at the report and disqualify him. I'm talking purely hypothetically of course.

The whole process undermines the trust between a team leader and mentors. How are we supposed to work effectively together when we're legally required to treat each other with suspicion? The whole part about making team leaders do reference checks is downright absurd. Surely three people selected by a mentor aren't going to say he shouldn't be on the team!

Has there ever been an incident of any sort of abuse by a mentor of a student? If so, maybe I could understand why they're doing this. But it seems like the schools and the teams already have systems in place to prevent that from happening. This whole thing seems like a gross violation of privacy, not to mention the rights of the team leader, designed to cover FIRST's $@#$@#$@#.

A few months ago a team leader expressing his frustration at FIRST told me "we do the first robotics competition in spite of FIRST." I can absolutely see what he meant.