Please Help - Team Lost Everything (money, robots, number..)

[Alex.q]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Was the team's equipment actually school district property? (For example, paid for with school funds, or donated to the school explicitly, perhaps in writing.) Or was it not clearly theirs to take away? (For example, bought by mentors or parents out of their own personal funds, and given to the school on the condition,¹ perhaps in writing, that it be used for 3456.) If and only if it's not the school's property free and clear, there may be a nuclear option available: you could sue them for conversion, or rather, provide a strongly-worded letter suggesting you might do just that.² If you can honestly say that it appears to be an instance of official corruption, or deliberate malfeasance, talk with the other mentors about making some discreet inquiries in this direction. But if the school really does own the property, that effort will fail.

I do not really understand all the legal system involved here, but I believe I have seen others on CD comment on this similarly. If a corporation gives money to a team to be used for a specific purpose, or if you had money from a specific grant, that money MUST be used for the same purpose as it was given. You said the money your team had leftover was reallocated to other teams: if that money came from your sponsors, you could ask them to get involved to ask for the money to be either returned or given to your team.

*I could be completely wrong here. If I am, please correct me.

[ebarker]

Yes, money was given to a school for team use and the money was probably used for team purposes.

However, it is general practice in most school districts that the school owns the property.

Who owns the property is a different issue than what the money was used for.

[MrTechCenter]

I don't know if I can help or offer an idea here. But my recommendation is, if you do succeed in reestablishing a team, register yourselves as a nonprofit organization. That way, you are no longer tied to the school and they cannot legally take anything away from you. As someone mentioned earlier, make the rest of your community aware of this situation. Draw attention from a local news station and parents. You may even go so far to protest the district's actions publicly.

[MrBasse]

We still haven't gotten clarification of where the equipment and supplies came from. After a two minute Google search I found the biggest problem you have. By becoming a group with the school you entered a contract with the school as a School Activity Fund group. Per this document you have absolutely no recourse here whatsoever.

Specifically - "5. Materials and equipment purchased by student activity funds become District property. "

I'm sorry to say this, but the district is following their guidelines to a T. Taking everything away and shutting down an educational group is a terrible way for a school to work, but maybe someone on the board of trustees didn't like something you were doing as a group. If that is the kind of environment you were in, I would consider you lucky to be forced out of it. Sounds like it was a toxic relationship from the way communication was/is handled and general treatment was/is addressed.

It sounds like you were extremely successful in that environment, there is no telling what you are capable of once you are free of that mess.

Our offer still stands if you need a hand, distance or not we'd hate to see another young team suffer at someone else's doing. Just let me know what you might need and we can see if we can work out a care package.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

We still haven't gotten clarification of where the equipment and supplies came from. After a two minute Google search I found the biggest problem you have. By becoming a group with the school you entered a contract with the school as a School Activity Fund group. Per this document you have absolutely no recourse here whatsoever.

Specifically - "5. Materials and equipment purchased by student activity funds become District property. "

I'm sorry to say this, but the district is following their guidelines to a T. Taking everything away and shutting down an educational group is a terrible way for a school to work, but maybe someone on the board of trustees didn't like something you were doing as a group. If that is the kind of environment you were in, I would consider you lucky to be forced out of it. Sounds like it was a toxic relationship from the way communication was/is handled and general treatment was/is addressed.

It sounds like you were extremely successful in that environment, there is no telling what you are capable of once you are free of that mess.

Our offer still stands if you need a hand, distance or not we'd hate to see another young team suffer at someone else's doing. Just let me know what you might need and we can see if we can work out a care package.

They may have had the legal right to do so, but were their actions justified? If they gave a response to the constant pleas from team members and parents, maybe their was reason for their actions, but from the information gathered here it seems that it was done completely without cause.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

They may have had the legal right to do so,

But did they have the moral right ?

I wish we knew the back story as the press calls it.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by ebarker

But did they have the moral right ?

I wish we knew the back story as the press calls it.

Not to be rude, but that's what I said in the rest of my comment.

[Nomadic Mentor]

If you post or PM a list of specific items I'll talk to my team (3483 ) and see if we can get some loaners to you.

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

They may have had the legal right to do so, but were their actions justified? If they gave a response to the constant pleas from team members and parents, maybe their was reason for their actions, but from the information gathered here it seems that it was done completely without cause.

I'm not saying I agree with what happened, I'm just pointing out the unfortunate truth of the situation. School is just like real life, it always pays to read the fine print...

Also, we still don't have any information as to what the cause could be. It's hard to believe but there could be the best possible reason for the board's actions. It could also be a trivial thing that was viewed as a possible cost savings. School boards are elected officials and elected officials don't always make the right choice, just the choice that they feel is right at the time.

I'm still offering support as I feel the actions of the board are unfair and ridiculous. But I like to offer up the facts of the matter so people will stop saying that these students and parents should sue or publicly protest. Both of those actions could lead to more trouble for the team.

Think about it this way, would you want to be associated and hosted by a school that you just filed a lawsuit on?

[JesseK]

My advice is to disband the newly-formed Livewire completely and start a community team as rookies under a new name & identity. Recruit additional kids from outside the schools as well. That way you get a rookie KOP.

From the way you've presented it, it sounds like the team got shafted by someone who was afraid that the money in the county would thin out due to your former team's success (championship attendance is NOT cheap).

[Bob Steele]

Please private message me to give me the most recent information about what you need. I am almost certain that we can help you by loaning some equipment.

Let's do this on the private messages...thanks
Coach Steele
Skunkworks Robotics 1983

[legogeek24]

Once again, thank you all for your concern and your helpful suggestions. We really appreciate each of them.

I'll start by answering the questions brought up to the best of my ability.

I want to start off by saying once again that we have absolutely no idea why the school district decided to do this. We did nothing wrong, we did nothing to warrant such action to the best of our knowledge. I have been racking my brain trying to determine what might have caused this to happen, and I can come up with absolutely nothing that would have caused the school board to take such an extreme course of action. The fact that they will not tell us their reasoning seems to me to be indicative of some inner politics at work. We have absolutely no idea what the district's thought process is, and if we had any idea what could have engendered such a rash course of action, we would tell you.

Second, we are not considering suing the school district or taking any sort of legal action. We feel we have taken every action possible short of legal measures, and when everything was unsuccessful, we decided to accept the situation, unfortunate as it is. Maybe we have grounds for sure actions, but we are not considering them, as we don't feel it would create a good situation for us or the school or the teachers who are affiliated with LiveWire.

To answer some of the points brought up, the build space in the mall was arranged for by LiveWire coaches and was paid for by private donations, at a rent significantly reduced by the mall in the first place.

As far as the situation regarding our number: the school district did not want us to continue independent of them, even though they didn't allow us to continue as a team. Even after we realized all our equipment was being taken, we asked to at least keep our number, but the district refused, and even wanted to keep our name. Luckily, FIRST intervened and allowed us to keep our name. We do not understand WHY the district wanted to keep our number, but they succeeded. I personally am not entirely clear on the logistics of that, but it is done and FIRST did what it could in the situation.

Concerning rivalries, there is no public rivalry that the district could have been trying to break up. LiveWire always made it a point to take the high road and live up to a high standard of gracious professionalism to do our part to ensure good relations with the other team. An outside observer during the last year would have seen LiveWire and HayWire working closely together, exchanging ideas, and cooperating with gracious professionalism.

For some good news, we have very recently become affiliated with 4H. While they were unable to offer us any monetary support, we were able to attain 501c(3) status, which we are very happy about.

For our leftover money, it was money we had raised through summer camps we hosted over the summer. It was placed in a school district account, because in order to make our camp's registration fees tax deductible, the money had to be paid through the school district. So there's nothing we can do to recover this unfortunately .

Overall, I think one of the best things we can get out of this situation is that (1) 501c(3) holds some very good benefits, even for teams who are well situated within a school. But (2), I am very happy to note that the support from the FIRST community has been amazing. We have received multiple offers of extra parts, and we're grateful for everyone who has offered them. We'll be in contact with you, thank you so much.

[cadandcookies]

Prior to any comment I may have regarding what poor advice I may be able to provide, I sincerely sympathize with your plight. I haven't had any personal experience with your team, but just from looking at your website, I can tell that you guys have a very passionate group of people that appear to be an excellent representation of the FIRST community.

On to something involving that poor advice I mentioned earlier--

I would have a few questions regarding the future usage of those tools-- where are they going? Are they going to HayWire? If so, are you still on good enough terms to enter into a cooperative relationship with them? I'm not sure what the district's policy on this is, but Cooperitition is one of those core values of FIRST, and if HayWire all of a sudden has all of these "old parts" that they can't necessarily use themselves during the next season, that might be an avenue to look into-- I mean, what use does the district have for a bunch of FRC-specific parts? Are they auctioning them to recoup costs, in the event that this is budget related?

That being said, if the district is actively hostile towards your organization, enraging them further probably won't result in good on either side, so something to take into consideration before looking into that.

Best of luck in all your endeavors.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

Specifically - "5. Materials and equipment purchased by student activity funds become District property. "

My team, the "Kell Robotics Team" is administratively a school club. Historically the money came into the school as a club contribution, school accounting handled the money, and the property became the schools. The money is school activity funds.

All of that has changed. We recently created a 501(c)3 non-profit public interest corporation, the Kell Robotics Foundation.

501(c)3 corporations can be public, or private. We are public.

Public 501(c)3 corporations can be a
1) a booster type of thing, where most money comes from fundraising, club dues, modest contributions, typical examples are sports and band boosters.
2) a public charity, where most money comes from outside donations. A good example of this is FIRST.

Most boosters are type (1) and provide single-entity support. In other words if the boosted club ceases existence, then the booster is no longer needed.

We elected to do type (2) multi-entity support organization because much of the work we do goes outside of our team and impacts teams all across the region. This gives us the legal latitude to spend money on other teams as part of our outreach. If the Kell Robotics Team (club) ceased to exist at school, the Kell Robotics Foundation and the Kell Robotics Innovation Center can exist in perpetuity, and the Kell Robotics Team could continue to exist as a non-school entity if there was demand.

It is a hedge against this type of action described in the OP. It gives the foundation ownership of the equipment.

It allows the foundation to bequeath the assets to FIRST, or GeorgiaFIRST, or their designee. Meaning if the foundation closed the doors the equipment goes to other FIRST teams and not locked into a warehouse like you see in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And the foundation can often get to a broader range of funding than a school can.

Having said all of that, the best option is for the school to fully embrace the team and fund it. The 2nd best option is for the school to at least celebrate the team and let it self fund.

I'm not crazy about every team going and creating a 501(c)3 but it is done by most sports, and fine arts clubs at schools everywhere so there you go.

But I would take special note as to how it is filed in the IRS 1023 Part X.

.