Ontario Teams in Jeopardy for 2012/2013?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I guess I still don't understand completely but that might be a difference in Canadian versus US schools.

Whether the teachers refuse to participate in extra-curricular activities or not, the team's money is the team's money and can't be held hostage. Unless the team's money is primarily coming from the school. Even in that case, here in the states many school administrations (upper management) don't fall under the union umbrella: as a result if you were here in the states you should still be able to get your funding.

There are many sponsors, including here in the US, that have restrictions on who they're going to write their checks to. As a consequence of that, many teams often have their corporate sponsorship routed through their school and/or have school-based accounts where they ultimately draw their funding. While some teams have officially become non-profit organizations, not every team has and some sponsors still wouldn't or couldn't fund such an organization without school affiliation.

That being said, it doesn't seem like the school's are threatening to hold the funding "hostage" in this situation (at least based on this thread). Teams may still be able to spend their money, so long as they find proper avenues and locations to work outside of school hours.

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Frankly, school absences are no big deal. It all comes down to a balance: is a handful of days at school (of which you'll spend thousands in your life) more important than FIRST?

That very much depends on the school system and the culture. While from our viewpoint as FRC mentors and engineers, we'd rather have students engaged in FRC activites, there are plenty of others who do not agree (often the parents and non-FIRST teachers).