A Little Mentor Problem

[treffk]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Just to add a quick bit from mentor perspective, occasionally in dealings with other professionals / administrators there are bits of information that won't (I might say shouldn't) be communicated to students.

Chief among these is usually financial information. If a meeting is going to be held and certain financial topics are going to be discussed, the other party may not want students present. It is usually the FIRST way to include the students in every aspect of the team, and conversely it is often the "professional world" way to bar students from some things. It doesn't sound like all of your issues are because of something like this, but a portion of it (especially the meeting with principles part) could be coming from that.

Alternatively the other parties could have a . . . prejudice against including students in "upper level" talks. Most people in FIRST disagree with this (as do I) but your mentor may be excluding you in order to help the team.

Again, it sounds like you have some other issues that everyone else is answering, I just thought I would give some alternate opinions.

This is right on the money. Similar to your stubborn former Head Coach there are stubborn Administrators in schools. Depending on the environment there or what mentors feel the environment is will determine if students should be present. Mentors and Coaches do not want to make those unfamiliar with the culture of FIRST uncomfortable as this could be a negative and make them decide not to participate/help.

I just want to mention I am a firm believer students are able to do anything and came from a team/school that thought that as well. As students we were given free reign to go find sponsors without adults present. We were given cash from a mentor and sent to the store to purchase items alone. On a monthly basis, excluding my freshman year, I would ask our secretary for a print out of our teams account through the school. Heck, I even filled out reimbursement paperwork and submitted it to the school, as a student, so adults could get money back for supplies/tools they purchased.