[Andrew Schreiber]

Team 397 requires students to either, participate in a fundraiser OR have their school account charged $50 (Until this charge is paid they cannot get their grades and cannot graduate) Obviously this comes no where near even covering food for the season, all food is donated by mentors (or their parents) or paid for by the team.

When I was on RUSH Clarkston implemented a Pay to Play policy, to be involved in ANY after school activity (NHS, Football, Marching Band, Robotics etc) you had to pay $50. On top of that, RUSH members are always required to fundraise a certain amount. This is actually a benefit to the team in two ways, it gains the team money and it shows the student is willing to work for it. Of course, if a student simply CANNOT raise the money the team will work with them.

Really the simple solution is to be flexible, never tell a student they cannot be involved because they cant pay you $500 dollars. Teams are all struggling for money right now, so are a lot of families, there are ways you can work around it, if the student wants to be involved NEVER turn them away for financial reasons.