Proof that districts work: PNW

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Mr V

However there was not a single team that earned an invite to DCMP that turned it down

Both 2550 and 4513 declined an invitation to DCMP. Invitations were then extended to 3237 and 2980. 2980 accepted and was in attendance.

There was no response tracked from 3237 on the District website or publicly otherwise. My guess would be they received the wait-list invitation late and did not respond. Due to this, an invitation was never passed down to 2374, who at the time was next in the point system. We ran one team shorter than originally specified (63/64).

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Dunngeon

While this is true, the distribution of the day's was much more destructive to our school's class schedule then it had been in years past. The compressed nature was what got to many members of our team, with a few choosing not to attend DCMP or CMP because of how much school they would be missing in such a short time period. (ie. last year, Qualified for CMP wk 2, attended CMP wk 9) to this year ( OSU wk 6, DCMP wk 7, CMP wk 9)

The time crunch isn't ideal, but again, I really enjoyed the district model

Note that competitive high school sports teams have similarly disruptive schedules over their season, particularly among spring sports. Both baseball and track teams typically travel to multi-day events on Friday and Saturday. In a large state like California team travel akin to districts is not uncommon.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Dunngeon

While this is true, the distribution of the day's was much more destructive to our school's class schedule then it had been in years past. The compressed nature was what got to many members of our team, with a few choosing not to attend DCMP or CMP because of how much school they would be missing in such a short time period. (ie. last year, Qualified for CMP wk 2, attended CMP wk 9) to this year ( OSU wk 6, DCMP wk 7, CMP wk 9)

The time crunch isn't ideal, but again, I really enjoyed the district model

One other point that we all should make to our school administrators: If the schools would recognize the extremely high value of this project-based STEM program, and how "being excused from classes" does NOT mean that the students' educational experience has been postponed, then this would be a non-issue. It's have to make a case for the educational benefit of high school sports, which is the most comparable situation (see the recent Atlantic Monthly article on this topic.) But that's not the case here. Robotics is even more mission-central than music programs that typically are treated as part of the curriculum. Student's classes should be required to schedule around the competitions, not the other way around.