Two school, One team

[James1902]

Hello,
Good way to find out about the relationship between 4-H and FIRST would be to go here: http://www.explodingbacon.com/4-h-and-first/

We run independently of the schools that our students go to (think club sports team vs a high school sports team) so all of our students are either brought by their parents, carpool in, or drive themselves to wherever we happen to be meeting.

The one big problem we've run into is a lack of a home, we've built in 5 different spaces and store all of our stuff in a storage unit or garage during the off season. 4-H provides our team with meeting space during the off season but unfortunately they cannot give us a build or storage space.

We're working to solve this problem.

I hope this helped, feel free to post or message if you have any questions.

[jsasaki]

I know that the Kauaibots team 2465 from the island of Kauai here in Hawaii consists of all the high school on their island.

Kauaibots - "Building geniuses island-wide"
Founded in the fall of 2007, Kauibots has competed in FIRST Robotics Competition season 2008 and 2009. We are gearing up for our third competitive season. Because of the size and location of Kauai (the westmost Hawaiian island), our team draws members from every high school on the island. Some of our team travels over an hour to participate with the rest of the team.

[Ravage457]

Originally Posted by James1902

Hello,
Good way to find out about the relationship between 4-H and FIRST would be to go here: http://www.explodingbacon.com/4-h-and-first/

We run independently of the schools that our students go to (think club sports team vs a high school sports team) so all of our students are either brought by their parents, carpool in, or drive themselves to wherever we happen to be meeting.

The one big problem we've run into is a lack of a home, we've built in 5 different spaces and store all of our stuff in a storage unit or garage during the off season. 4-H provides our team with meeting space during the off season but unfortunately they cannot give us a build or storage space.

We're working to solve this problem.

I hope this helped, feel free to post or message if you have any questions.

yes thank you for the link, im gonna check it out

Now the insurance part, how would that work? would the district with the team be responsible, or would the two district have to get together and work it out? What would be the best route to avoid having any issue over this?

[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by James1902

Hello,
Good way to find out about the relationship between 4-H and FIRST would be to go here: http://www.explodingbacon.com/4-h-and-first/

We run independently of the schools that our students go to (think club sports team vs a high school sports team) so all of our students are either brought by their parents, carpool in, or drive themselves to wherever we happen to be meeting.

The one big problem we've run into is a lack of a home, we've built in 5 different spaces and store all of our stuff in a storage unit or garage during the off season. 4-H provides our team with meeting space during the off season but unfortunately they cannot give us a build or storage space.

We're working to solve this problem.

I hope this helped, feel free to post or message if you have any questions.

Same here. We're a 4H team but our single biggest problem at the moment outside of funding is a place to build. Last season we built inside the Parks and Rec maintenance building but during the spring/summer/fall they're using it so it's absolutely full with fertilizer and other stuff. All our equipment is in the metal caged-off portion for storage, which certainly works better than our previous arrangement, but we can't really do any off-season build projects without anywhere to work.

[Jimmy Nichols]

1038 has students from 4 different schools within the same district, 2 High Schools and 2 Freshman Schools. We also have students from a nearby school district and a home schooled student from near Dayton. We have always had an open-door policy for students who did not have a team in their school.

We currently work at a local mall, we have our own store that we lease and use as our build and meeting space. We also use it to showcase FIRST and our team to the public. We carry our own insurance since we do not work at the school. We still house some of our funds at the school for those sponsors who only want to donate to the school. But we also started a non-profit group that manages a Fund through the our local Community Foundation that is a 501(c)3.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Ravage457

yes thank you for the link, im gonna check it out

Now the insurance part, how would that work? would the district with the team be responsible, or would the two district have to get together and work it out? What would be the best route to avoid having any issue over this?

4-H can help with insurance if you work through them. I believe they use American Income Life.

[scott]

Team 447 in the last few years has operated with all school districts within Madison County though the majority of our students are from Anderson High School. We have had as many as 7 high schools represented before on our team in a season. It does create an interesting communication challenge between the team and the schools, but we never have had any problems with this setup. Additionally, we used to meet at a school within the Anderson district but have since found a local business that has allowed us access to their building. We are also an explorer's troop with the Boy Scouts and have insurance through them. To manage our funds we are grouped with Madison County Community Foundation (a 501c3).

[EricH]

294 has been doing two different--and might I add, rival--schools on one team since 1998. I don't know much about how they work, so I can't comment on that, but they do have 2 World Championships to their credit (2001, 2010) so they must be doing something right.

Prior to that, teams 294, 207, and 330 were on the same team; I remember hearing something about 4+ different schools in 3+ different districts being a bit of an administrative nightmare, which is why there are now three teams.

[GBK]

1918 is a county team and is open to all schools within the county, including home school. We have members from four public schools and a christian school. There is only one school district in our county that we do not have students representation. We operate under Newaygo County Regional Educational Service Agency. We meet at the Career Tech Center. Works out real well.

[momter]

We are pulling from 4 different Districts this year As attempts to form teams at these other Districts have been met with resistance from Administrators. Our Hope is that this will drive home to those Districts the realization that they have enough student interest. The financial constraints of small Districts is a big fear to overcome. We are doing what we need to to get these students into the FIRST program. Parental support has been tremendous. I feel this will sway administrators.

[Karibou]

1189 is comprised of students from both high schools in the same school district. Due to district restrictions, we could not accept students from other area high schools (public or private), but one of the local private schools has formed their own team (3175).

For us*, it isn't very difficult at all to operate with students from two schools. In Fall 2009, we moved our build space from one school to the other, and since then the amount of students coming in from each school has been pretty balanced (there used to be a severe deficit of students from the school with the old build space). I don't know if it was a district policy or just a coincidence, but we also got a new faculty advisor that worked at the new school. If forms had to be turned in to the school somewhere between meetings, we would designate one person from each school to collect them and turn them in at once, but we gradually moved towards releasing the forms far enough in advance so that they could be turned in during meetings.

For banking, I believe that we had one account with the district, but if we needed to talk to someone about getting a check or whatnot, the advisor talkled with the appropriate people at the school they taught at.

One of the challenges is recruiting evenly at all of the schools you have participants from. You may not get the same amount of interest from every school, but it is still probably best to give students in the same district an equal opportunity to get involved with the team.

As with all things involving schools, your mileage may vary. School districts can be finicky, especially if you cross district lines.


*Okay, I'm alum, but from what I've heard from and observed of the current team and its operations, not much has changed.

[EricS-Team180]

S.P.A.M is the FRC team for the Martin County (FL) High School District. We are as inclusive as we can be under the school district rules, and include 3 county high schools, a charter school and home schoolers. There have been instances in the past where students who were county residents, but attended private schools outside the county, were also team members. The number of students from each school varies widely from year to year. The high schools are sports rivals, but that seems to melt away as we collaborate for the FRC season.

Our shop is an old, converted storage shed on the South Fork H.S. campus. It was given to the team by the County School board around the end of 2000. They poured a concrete floor and added A/C and electrical service. Our original sponsor - Pratt and Whitney - donated a Bridgeport mill, lathe, band saw and drill press. Prior to that, S.P.A.M had the problem of never having a permanent build space. Our financial account is held by the school district through the South Fork school administration.

We only have a ~10' x 15' space for driving in the shop. Each year we go to the South Fork administration for permission to schedule gym time for field set-up and practice. We have rolled carpet for a ~1/2 field and build the game pieces for as simple set up and tear down as we can. Getting gym time is a challenge, since it is also winter sports season.

To operate under the school district, we need a Martin School District representative (ie employee) present any time we meet or travel. Most of the mentors - engineers or NEMO's - work outside the school district so, we recruit teacher mentors from each of the schools. Together they can share
their time so we can meet during the grind of build season. In the past it has been quite a challenge to recruit teachers to support the team. Fortunately, we have had a very helpful group that "get it" the last few years, and we have profited as a team from their commitment.

[AcesJames]

My high school team, Team 176, is officially associated with two rival high schools, Suffield and Windsor Locks High Schools. Our build space is at WLHS, and our scrimmage is hosted at SHS every year. We have 2 advisers, one from each associated high school. Also, Aside from pulling approximately 35 students from SHS and WHLS, we accept another 15 or so students from local private schools and home schools. Schools which are not officially associated with our team do not have teacher representation on the team, however many parents of students from outside schools join the team as mentors.

In 2012 we had a total of 53 students from Suffield High School, Windsor Locks High School, The Master's School (private), Metropolitan Learning Center, Ellington High School, and a home school.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

WildStang has always been a team of more than one school. The team name is a combination of the Wheeling HS Wildcats and Rolling Meadows HS Mustangs. For the past many years, team members come from several District 214 schools and home school students in our area.

[ChuckDickerson]

Team 456 - Siege Robotics accepts applications from any student in our area that wishes to apply. We have team members from both public and private schools as well as home school. This works well in our small town and everyone benefits. We are held up as an example of how the public and private schools can work together. As others have pointed out, the only issue revolves around communication. We just can't make an "announcement" at one school and cover all the bases. There is a lot of email, phone calls, text messaging, facebook, etc. to reach everyone on our team but we make it work.