Improving Consent Forms & Waivers

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Every year I have to deal with at least one kid who put in a fake birth date which makes them over 18 years old and so his parent would not get the email notification to consent.

WOW...

We had problems a few years ago with kids putting fake email addresses in the parent email address and then logging in to approve themselves. We make it abundantly clear that any type of subterfuge is grounds for immediate dismissal from the team, no exceptions.

[Karthik]

I agree that the current system is rather cumbersome, with the multiple steps required to complete the form. As such, we do things the old fashioned way, and submit paper copies of our consent forms. The students already have to do paper copies of the school consent and insurance forms; adding the FIRST consent form to the package that their parents already have to sign doesn't add any additional inconvenience. As long as FIRST gives us an option to do paper copies of these forms, we'll be forgoing their online system.

[DELurker]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I agree that the current system is rather cumbersome, with the multiple steps required to complete the form. As such, we do things the old fashioned way, and submit paper copies of our consent forms. The students already have to do paper copies of the school consent and insurance forms; adding the FIRST consent form to the package that their parents already have to sign doesn't add any additional inconvenience. As long as FIRST gives us an option to do paper copies of these forms, we'll be forgoing their online system.

Our team, for the most part, does it this way as well. With fewer than 20 students (hopefully to change this year), it's not quite so burdensome to keep a log of which forms were completed by which student on which date. Since half of our forms must be filled out in a paper format, it just makes sense for everything to be paper.

Of course, we email the students and parents a bulk PDF with all of the forms in it about once per week during build season. This is (of course) a blatantly transparent attempt to get them to use their paper rather than mine .