Former Mentor Issues

[Flyman141]

Let me premise this with the fact that I am no longer a part of this team, as I have graduated, but I am a mentor contact for the team.

The team that I was a part of is experiencing a lot of difficulty after or head mentor and only teacher contact with our school decided to stop doing FRC entirely and wash her hands of the team. She encouraged the students and parents to continue if they wanted, and so they did. She took herself off of the mentor contact list and (with administrative approval from the school) gave a parent the lead mentor contact position.

The problem that we are running into now is that this teacher, who is no longer affiliated with the team, is claiming that everything the team owned, including tools and banners and all previous robots and parts belongs to the school's engineering and robotics department, which is essentially her department. Can she do this, or do the things purchased by a team that is affiliated with a school department still belong to the team after it is no longer affiliated with that department (we are still affiliated with the school itself)?

Please, we need advice on how to keep ownership of our parts and tools. It's already hard enough trying to find a place to work now that she won't let the team use "her" lab to work in (the school built that lab because the team needed a place to work in, though it still technically belongs to her department). And we're losing some corporate sponsors because of their concerns with us not working on campus, so we can't afford to buy brand new electronics and motors and tools.