Does your team charge a fee to join?

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

In this thread, I'm a little bit surprised by the number of teams that have such requirements which seem to (perhaps not deliberately) exclude less fortunate students. What a luxury it must be (for the teams) to be able to charge a fee for participation, but what an unfortunate circumstance it would be for that really bright kid who does not come from a family of wealth, and whose family does not have $200 or even $20 to spend for him or her to join.

Perhaps things are just different outside of California...

I think others have said this earlier in the thread, but our experience echoes the same: If there is a kid who wants to join our team but cannot, for some reason, pay the money - we work it out. We would never, ever, deny a student for their inability to pay if they truly want to be there. As an example, in our case, maybe the student creates the equivalent of the fee by putting in more outreach hours than the handbook requires or by bringing in a new sponsor.

But with almost 200 students clamoring to join our program, the fee is (1) a way to help cover our district travel and (2) a way of weeding out the kids who just want it on their resume but don't actually want to engage with the program.