FIRST Chesapeake Districts

[zcohen]

I forgot about this thread for a bit until one of my students asked me about it. They asked me word for word, "why are there mentors on CD that just keep bashing every decision on going to districts?" This got me to read through the thread a bit and I can totally see where they're coming from. A lot of the posts come off extremely accusatory against the planning committees and steering committee, and many could have been figured out with a simple email to the team's RD instead of going through and complaining about what seems like half the things said by the steering committee. Remember students read these posts too, and if my kids are actively asking me why all the negativity, there must be many more thinking it too.
Many people seem to forget how difficult it must be to switch to districts. Your taking so much that was done by FIRST HQ and, and putting on the backs of largely a volunteer group. While there are paid staff, they still have to do everything they had to do before with running all four programs in their states in addition to the added workload on districts. Instead of complaining about things, how about we help each other out. Instead of saying just "the district should have done this", how about asking, "hey, I think this could have gone better this way, have you looked into it that way, and if not, could I do so?"

Maybe I'm just reading into these posts too much, but again, this is a public forum that our kids are reading, and I know they're having at least the same thoughts as I am on my team.