FRC as a school sport

[cadandcookies]

According to the Minnesota State High School League, FRC is a sanctioned varsity level sport. However, letter awards are a high school level decision, so that varies. We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.

Overall, our team has a very supportive administration-- team members are allowed to miss school for events, we have working partnerships with the school's counseling, math and science departments for our annual STEM Career Fair, and we get announcements just like any other sport when we win.

[TNT280Staff]

Team "TnT" 280 has been awarding students varsity letters for the past 8 years. We have 2 schools involved but were secure the status of a varsity sport thru the school board, thus eliminating and issues with the individual leadership at the individual school level.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.

I would like to quote an teacher in one of our schools, "The administration feels that we are "too good" or "too proud" for shop and engineering classes, so they have been cutting back on them.". Math team, Science Olympiad and others get funding from the school, robotics doesn't. Sports are on a whole different level (brand new turf field/stadium) and they haven't won any awards in years.

So while the MSHSL affiliation has helped the majority of schools, there are still some where it didn't make a difference. Nonetheless, I love the way MSHSL has improved FIRST recognition in Minnesota.

To answer OP's post; all of our students can letter at the varsity level.

[Shrub]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

According to the Minnesota State High School League, FRC is a sanctioned varsity level sport. However, letter awards are a high school level decision, so that varies. We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.

As a MN team, the same goes for us, although our match days are never announced (we got to go and announce for State, and our regional finalist win was announced this year) and many people at our school don't consider it a sport at all. Teachers and administration think it's really cool, though, and some people are positive towards it. Sadly most people think that sport = athletic so there's that. I'm pretty sure you can letter in it here though.

[SteveB2977]

We have lettering for our team and work hard to get it recognition = sports.

Starting last year, we convinced the local paper to include our team photo in the newspaper spread that had all the winter sports teams. So right next to basketball and gymnastics, there was the robotics team!

[Jon Stratis]

We've had lettering for 6-7 years now. The team came up with an intense set of criteria to letter, and the school approved it - basically, the criteria helped to show that the students were doing just as much as any sports team at the school, and that lettering wasn't going to be "easy", although almost everyone on the team for 2+ years does manage it. We have a requirement for 2 years or more on the team, and a certain amount of leadership has to be shown (captains, design leads, drive team, scouting lead, pit presenters, etc... there are more positions available than students most years!)

[pastelpony]

We just got lettering this year (team's 4th year.) At first, everyone said we were unworthy of them because all we had to do was "show up." They shut up pretty fast as we brought back more trophies than any other team.

[woudie]

My school recognizes our team as a sport, but we are not 100% we get the same benefits the other teams do from the school, and what is a varsity letter ?

[Kingland093]

Team 4215 has had Varsity letters every year we have been a team (2012 on)
We get our competitions and results announced like other sports teams but we are not considered an actual sport