Districts in Texas proposal sent to FIRST

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Or, as is common when two legal entities are attempting to come to a contractual agreement, the details won't be made public until after the agreement is signed. It's not a question of transparency, it's a question of legal obligations for the two corporations. Personally, I wouldn't expect details to be made available until after an agreement was reached.

Well... it is a question of transparency when it comes to how it will affect my teams that I have a responsibility to look out for.

To get the info _after_ the agreement is signed is TOO LATE to have an opportunity to review and comment and maybe to organize an effort to affect what the final agreement form is.

This change over is the BIGGEST thing to happen to Texas FRC teams, ever... and IMO the affected teams should be apprised of what's proposed and should be afforded an opportunity for input.

--Michael Blake

[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Well... it is a question of transparency when it comes to how it will affect my teams that I have a responsibility to look out for.

To get the info _after_ the agreement is signed is TOO LATE to have an opportunity to review and comment and maybe to organize an effort to affect what the final agreement form is.

This change over is the BIGGEST thing to happen to Texas FRC teams, ever... and IMO the affected teams should be apprised of what's proposed and should be afforded an opportunity for input.

--Michael Blake

Michael,

We (as Texas mentors) have had a chance to provide comments and input about districts for quite some time now. In May of 2015 an email was sent to all texas teams with everyone that is on the 20 person District Competition Committee and how to reach them. The committee is comprised of members from a range of types of teams. There were 5 POCs for the Alamo regional that the email literally urged you to correspond with to give your input.

IMO, like Jon said, it doesn't make sense to send out what was proposed. People will start planning towards what was proposed when FIRST could reject it out right, accept it as is, or suggest major modifications. Two of those three options could then cause plenty of people to get all up in a huff about the changes (whether it's "why wouldn't HQ accept that" or "why did HQ accept that").

Transparency is good. I think FiT sending out this email now saying that a proposal has been sent to HQ is being much more transparent than some things we've seen in the past. Even with all the UIL discussion, I didn't know there was really a chance to become UIL in the middle of the school year/build season, and threw me for a loop. This allows us to continue to make plans for regionals next year, while being prepared for possible changes, and lets us know that the "Texas districts soon" is a REAL thing this time around, as opposed to the past 2/3/4 years where I've heard "Texas districts soon".

[waialua359]

Looks like Texas will be a priority for us in 2017 if they dont go districts. Running out of places to play.
But anyhow, good luck with getting it. Any area that can implement districts is an overall benefit for all participating/eligible teams.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Looks like Texas will be a priority for us in 2017 if they dont go districts. Running out of places to play.
But anyhow, good luck with getting it. Any area that can implement districts is an overall benefit for all participating/eligible teams.

Boise is nice in the Spring

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Boise is nice in the Spring

I hear Hawaii is not bad also.
We will be in Idaho one day soon!

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Boise is nice in the Spring

So it Duluth... wait, scratch that. No it's not

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Looks like Texas will be a priority for us in 2017 if they dont go districts. Running out of places to play.
But anyhow, good luck with getting it. Any area that can implement districts is an overall benefit for all participating/eligible teams.

+1

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

Like you stated, the thing that will be interesting to me about Texas districts is there's a significant # of teams that don't have more than 1 event (currently) within 300 miles of them, and some of those don't have any event within 300 miles. If the normal district rules apply, forcing those teams to do two competitions in Texas could place a significant burden on them, or force something like Lubbock to host 2 district events back to back with many of the teams competing in both against a roster of teams that is mostly the same, or some other solution I have not heard of/thought of. There's a LOT of Texas that is not within a couple hours drive of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, or Houston.

Texas had 136 teams in 2015 according to this, so there will probably be around 7 events minimum (2 plays per team at 40 team events comes out to 6.8 events needed), though there will probably be several more, maybe like 10 (this is a complete guess), in actuality. According to TBA there were 4 events in Texas this year, so there will likely be twice or more as many events in Texas on the district model compared to the regional model. While I am sure some teams will have a larger travel burden because of districts, many teams will probably end up with more events close to them than they currently have.

Basically, I am trying to say that the change in travel burden will, at a minimum, probably not be quite as bad as you think, if not make things easier for a lot of teams.

[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Basically, I am trying to say that the change in travel burden will, at a minimum, probably not be quite as bad as you think, if not make things easier for a lot of teams.

I agree that there will be several more competitions. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than the required 7. I also think that the travel burden will be easier for some teams (Many teams that used to only be able to do 1 event now being able to easily attend 2 district competitions within their home towns of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or Houston, and maybe Lubbock with little to no cost increase) But I will be surprised if any pop up outside of Lubbock, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. The team density outside of any of those cities just doesn't justify having a district competition anywhere else, and I don't think anyone has experience running district events outside of those 5 cities. So I think for several teams, more competitions available just doesn't help, and requiring attendance at 2 district competitions may prove to be an insurmountable financial burden. I'm not sure how many teams are in west texas (I wish there was a google map with a dot for every team in texas, but I don't want to take the time to make that happen), but for a team in El Paso the two closest cities that have event experience are Lubbock (5.5 hrs away) and San Antonio (7.5 hrs away). If the point of districts is to have two competitions ideally within driving distance to eliminate the need for a hotel, then that's just not possible with a sustainable team density for the foreseeable future.

All that said - I'm strongly for districts. I think it helps a significant number of teams, helps the teams of Texas from a world champs standpoint, and I'm hopeful that the negative impact to teams will be non-existent or mitigate-able. I'm just think/hope that Texas districts is a set up to function a little different than existing models.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

I agree that there will be several more competitions. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than the required 7. I also think that the travel burden will be easier for some teams (Many teams that used to only be able to do 1 event now being able to easily attend 2 district competitions within their home towns of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or Houston, and maybe Lubbock with little to no cost increase) But I will be surprised if any pop up outside of Lubbock, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. The team density outside of any of those cities just doesn't justify having a district competition anywhere else, and I don't think anyone has experience running district events outside of those 5 cities. So I think for several teams, more competitions available just doesn't help, and requiring attendance at 2 district competitions may prove to be an insurmountable financial burden. I'm not sure how many teams are in west texas (I wish there was a google map with a dot for every team in texas, but I don't want to take the time to make that happen), but for a team in El Paso the two closest cities that have event experience are Lubbock (5.5 hrs away) and San Antonio (7.5 hrs away). If the point of districts is to have two competitions ideally within driving distance to eliminate the need for a hotel, then that's just not possible with a sustainable team density for the foreseeable future.

All that said - I'm strongly for districts. I think it helps a significant number of teams, helps the teams of Texas from a world champs standpoint, and I'm hopeful that the negative impact to teams will be non-existent or mitigate-able. I'm just think/hope that Texas districts is a set up to function a little different than existing models.

Andrew... what do you think of a financial travel stipend to normalize travel for these far-flung teams funded by FIRST in Texas?

It's not perfect because of the hours of extra travel time you can't recover for these teams but would be the closest to the best solution possible I believe.

--Michael Blake

[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Andrew... what do you think of a financial travel stipend to normalize travel for these far-flung teams funded by FIRST in Texas?

It's not perfect because of the hours of extra travel time you can't recover for these teams but would be the closest to the best solution possible I believe.

--Michael Blake

Bluntly put - I think it's naive to think that it'd happen. The Texas Workforce Commission grants, which seems to be the majority of the funding, already has the stipulations that it can't be used for travel, food, or lodging. My experience has been that most sponsors do not want money spent on those things, and I'd be hard pressed to think that FiT could find companies that would allow for their sponsorship to be used for costs associated with travel. Putting that burden on FiT just isn't any more sensible than putting it on the teams.

There's also nuances to consider in team sizes (how many rooms), and district rules regarding travel (for instance, any travel we use - bus or vans - have to be through a school approved vendor). If you were to attempt to do a financial stipend, I'd guess that the sponsors would also want to control what bus/van/hotel is used rather than just give the money to a team outright which could cause it's own set of problems. Granted though, if you could even get to this point I think most teams that have to deal with those sort of rules imposed by a district could find a way to make something work if it reduces costs...but I've learned never to doubt the ability for rules and regulations to force a decision that doesn't make any sense or to turn down "free money".

In addition to seeming unrealistic IMO, I think it treats the symptom rather than do anything to address an issue.

To be fair, I don't have a solution that I think is sufficient either. Do you allow teams to duplicate their score from attending 1 event if they justifiably can't attend 2? Do you reduce their registration fee to do only 1 district event? Do you allow west texas teams or border teams to compete out of state to count for district points? Do you only have districts for the parts of texas with a required team density (basically east texas)? Do you allow teams that aren't within XXX miles of a district event to decide on their own to opt-in or opt-out of districts? All of these come with their own set of obvious problems.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

Bluntly put - I think it's naive to think that it'd happen.

Wow, Andrew... "naive" is not usually a word associated with my thoughts... lol

I prefer "learned and aspirational"... ;-)

--Michael

P.S. I could raise that money for FIRST in Texas and I offered to raise substantial money for them and they turned me down... so that's that.

[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Wow, Andrew... "naive" is not usually a word associated with my thoughts... lol

Haha, if I had any doubt as to if you were a fellow mentor, I'd be less blunt as to why I don't think it'd work. And it's certainly possible that it may be me that's naive about fundraising substantial funds for the sole use of travel - but my own experiences over the past 10 years both in FIRST and the profesional world are that travel money is hard to come by.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

There's also nuances to consider in team sizes (how many rooms), and district rules regarding travel (for instance, any travel we use - bus or vans - have to be through a school approved vendor). If you were to attempt to do a financial stipend, I'd guess that the sponsors would also want to control what bus/van/hotel is used rather than just give the money to a team outright which could cause it's own set of problems. Granted though, if you could even get to this point I think most teams that have to deal with those sort of rules imposed by a district could find a way to make something work if it reduces costs...but I've learned never to doubt the ability for rules and regulations to force a decision that doesn't make any sense or to turn down "free money".

In addition to seeming unrealistic IMO, I think it treats the symptom rather than do anything to address an issue.

To be fair, I don't have a solution that I think is sufficient either. Do you allow teams to duplicate their score from attending 1 event if they justifiably can't attend 2? Do you reduce their registration fee to do only 1 district event? Do you allow west texas teams or border teams to compete out of state to count for district points? Do you only have districts for the parts of texas with a required team density (basically east texas)? Do you allow teams that aren't within XXX miles of a district event to decide on their own to opt-in or opt-out of districts? All of these come with their own set of obvious problems.

Andrew... everything you raise here is legit and the opposite of naive < ;-) > but there needs to be something done, at least initially, for these West Texas and Southwest Texas teams that are going to get killed by that second competition requirement.

Some of your suggestions above are _really_ interesting...

--Michael

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Andrew... everything you raise here is legit and the opposite of naive < ;-) > but there needs to be something done, at least initially, for these West Texas and Southwest Texas teams that are going to get killed by that second competition requirement.

Some of your suggestions above are _really_ interesting...

--Michael

Many of those teams were already failing. If FiT can get two districts in Lubbock, one in El Paso and one in the McAllen area, it should only help those struggling areas.

There will be teams that will struggle with this in West Texas(~2) but they aren't the only ones there are also teams in East Texas(~4-5) and a couple of Coastal Teams(~2) that may need help in the first couple of years but going by 2016 teams it shouldn't be more then 15 total teams. Hopefully FiT will find some funds or expectations for them.