Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

I guess the optimal situation is the blend of the two. We are a school team and have a parent-run 501c3 booster club..

Same here. Further, in Louisiana, high school students can only have five absences per semester. Excused absences count against these five, the difference being whether students can make up the work, or must take zeros for work due those days. Field trips taken by official school groups are not considered absence, and work can be made-up. These tight rules would make it rather difficult to field an FRC team that is not either related to a school (or perhaps two or more schools, as is the case with 1912) or that is effectively a home-school cooperative.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Same here. Further, in Louisiana, high school students can only have five absences per semester. Excused absences count against these five, the difference being whether students can make up the work, or must take zeros for work due those days. Field trips taken by official school groups are not considered absence, and work can be made-up. These tight rules would make it rather difficult to field an FRC team that is not either related to a school (or perhaps two or more schools, as is the case with 1912) or that is effectively a home-school cooperative.

Can you (or, really anyone) explain the logic in that? The last time I was sick[1] I was mostly incapacitated for over a week, first by dehydration then by the medicine making everything hazy. Under this inane policy I wouldn't be eligible to make up any work. Which, we'll ignore that even once I got back to work I was still nowhere near 100% for nearly a month.


[1] Double sinus infection, not really anything one would consider even a major illness.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Can you (or, really anyone) explain the logic in that? The last time I was sick[1] I was mostly incapacitated for over a week, first by dehydration then by the medicine making everything hazy. Under this inane policy I wouldn't be eligible to make up any work. Which, we'll ignore that even once I got back to work I was still nowhere near 100% for nearly a month.


[1] Double sinus infection, not really anything one would consider even a major illness.

This is a great question. I have firsthand experience with an equally draconian and tone-deaf attendance policy and I have the same befuddled reaction to it that you do.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Can you (or, really anyone) explain the logic in that? The last time I was sick[1] I was mostly incapacitated for over a week, first by dehydration then by the medicine making everything hazy. Under this inane policy I wouldn't be eligible to make up any work. Which, we'll ignore that even once I got back to work I was still nowhere near 100% for nearly a month.


[1] Double sinus infection, not really anything one would consider even a major illness.

We have a similar policy although its a little more forgiving.

You can only have 20 excused absences (excused meaning your parents called) per year in every day courses and only 10 excused absences in 1/2 year courses.

All of our robotics competition absences count as exempt absences so they do not count towards our 20. Exempts only happen with school endorsed trips.

However, if you have a specific medical condition that will keep you out of school for extended periods of time you have to call for home bound instruction where tutors will come to your house (2 hours per week each subject) and that counts as attendance.

My freshman year I fractured my skull and got an epidural hematoma keeping me our of school for a month but none of the time I spent in the hospital or at home after the injury counted towards my absences.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by electroken

We can only dream about these. Often the school affiliation feels like shackles.

We can't take home-schooled kids from within our own town.

Except for large distances where air travel is preferred/required we must travel by bus. This is complicated by the fact that our school system's buses cannot leave the state, so travel has become very expensive (sometimes prohibitively so).

The option of going rogue exists but means the students would have unexcused absences for weekday events.

We actually get absence exemptions for our events, which was not true our rookie year in 2008 (my freshman year). Our BoE is quite happy letting us be on our own, but will give our kids the absence exceptions, provided a teacher travels with us. We usually have a student whose parent is a teacher, so this hasn't been a problem for us so far.

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

We have a similar policy although its a little more forgiving.

You can only have 20 excused absences (excused meaning your parents called) per year in every day courses and only 10 excused absences in 1/2 year courses.

All of our robotics competition absences count as exempt absences so they do not count towards our 20. Exempts only happen with school endorsed trips.

However, if you have a specific medical condition that will keep you out of school for extended periods of time you have to call for home bound instruction where tutors will come to your house (2 hours per week each subject) and that counts as attendance.

My freshman year I fractured my skull and got an epidural hematoma keeping me our of school for a month but none of the time I spent in the hospital or at home after the injury counted towards my absences.

Our students have a similar policy, but I can't recall exactly what it is (it has changed since I graduated). But I think it's something like 5 excused/unexcused absences allowed per semester, and unlimited exemptions. The attendance policies (at least at my alma mater, we pull from multiple schools) are based on periods, not on days. They have an odd-even block schedule, so 4 periods a day, switching every day ("odd" days and "even" days. For a regional where they miss Thursday and Friday, they only miss 8 periods. Students at our other high school don't have a block schedule, and have 8 periods a day, so they miss 16 periods for a regional. Luckily, they have exemptions now, so they don't count toward the 5 limit.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Can you (or, really anyone) explain the logic in that? The last time I was sick[1] I was mostly incapacitated for over a week, first by dehydration then by the medicine making everything hazy. Under this inane policy I wouldn't be eligible to make up any work. Which, we'll ignore that even once I got back to work I was still nowhere near 100% for nearly a month.


[1] Double sinus infection, not really anything one would consider even a major illness.

Usually schools count illness (when your parent calls in) as an excused absence, so you would have been able to make up work. The 5 day limit is a little low, though... what happens if your sick more than 5 days? Do you just automatically fail and have to redo the year?

[blazingbronco18]

I would have to agree that non-school teams have an advantage. I work with a team associated with a school. We have had a lot of hassle setting trips up for out of state regionals and dealing with bad weather conditions at our home regionals. While also having conflict getting the manufacturing lab and classrooms for team meetings reserved.

[GreyingJay]

2706 is a community based team and we have definitely seen the pros and cons of not being associated with a school.

The biggest challenge for us was finding space to meet, build, and store things. Three very distinct problems to solve. A school based team would likely have a built-in supply of classrooms, storage space, and a machine shop. We had none of these things. Our meetings took place at various City of Ottawa facilities including the local public library and community center, and storage has been a combination of borrowed storage cages from the community gym, and mentor garages/basements/vehicle trunks.

Students also find it easier to go to school and simply stay there to work on robotics, rather than have to arrange transportation for themselves after school to get to one of our meetings.

On the plus side, when we do any kind of publicity, it is nice to be able to say that we can accept high school students from anywhere. And our partnership with the local library has been very enthusiastic and fruitful, so there is some built in visibility there.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

2706 is a community based team and we have definitely seen the pros and cons of not being associated with a school.

The biggest challenge for us was finding space to meet, build, and store things. Three very distinct problems to solve. A school based team would likely have a built-in supply of classrooms, storage space, and a machine shop. We had none of these things. Our meetings took place at various City of Ottawa facilities including the local public library and community center, and storage has been a combination of borrowed storage cages from the community gym, and mentor garages/basements/vehicle trunks.

Students also find it easier to go to school and simply stay there to work on robotics, rather than have to arrange transportation for themselves after school to get to one of our meetings.

On the plus side, when we do any kind of publicity, it is nice to be able to say that we can accept high school students from anywhere. And our partnership with the local library has been very enthusiastic and fruitful, so there is some built in visibility there.

Meet, build, and storage are not necessarily easier for school based teams. For the first 7 years of my team's existence, we had no space at the school. We built out of parents garages, donated space, and from space we rented. We even had to rent a closet off-site during the off-season to store stuff, all at the team's expense. Building was off-site as well. So you really can't take that for granted for school based teams.

Most people here seems to be under the impression that there are just two types of teams - school based and community based. They assume that in these areas their team is exactly like every other team of their type. That just isn't true. Every team is different, and poses different challenges. They key is in the relationships. The advantage is going to go to whichever teams form the best relationships with their school(s) and community. It's as simple as that.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Most people here seems to be under the impression that there are just two types of teams - school based and community based. They assume that in these areas their team is exactly like every other team of their type. That just isn't true. Every team is different, and poses different challenges. They key is in the relationships. The advantage is going to go to whichever teams form the best relationships with their school(s) and community. It's as simple as that.

Was thinking about posting this exact thing, but you nailed it. It's all about the relationships.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Meet, build, and storage are not necessarily easier for school based teams.

Most people here seems to be under the impression that there are just two types of teams - school based and community based. They assume that in these areas their team is exactly like every other team of their type. That just isn't true. Every team is different, and poses different challenges. They key is in the relationships. The advantage is going to go to whichever teams form the best relationships with their school(s) and community. It's as simple as that.

I am going to echo Jon on much of this. Just because a team is school-affiliated does not clear up the storage issues. My shop is packed full of Robotics stuff throughout the year - and during the build season the space (and the students) run like a carousel of school projects and team projects.

Communication is key. For those that struggle with their school, I strongly suggest that regular/annual meetings with the school admins as well as presentations in front of the school board are great opportunities to build bridges.

FRC 4607 started as a club team that has retained our own budget. We raise our own funds (school pays for nothing) and we actually bring in more tools to the shop than I can purchase from my school budget to stock my shop. We spend around $2500 each season purchasing power tools, machines, consumables, etc. We look at is as 'rent' for the use of the space.

Each year Becker School District has continued to grow the partnership with our club. We straddle the line of self-funded and school sanctioned. In other words we pay our way, the school admin gets to tout a strong STEM activity.

For the teams that struggle with scheduling, I suggest that you meet with the Community Ed department (in MN CommEd is a BIG part of schools) and see if you can work out a schedule long before the build season begins.

We even host The GreenHorns Ri3d in our shop for 4+ days at the beginning of each season. COR Robotics also runs their summer camps in our space as well. All of this is scheduled through Community Ed.

Communications is key - and going in to each season with a great plan/schedule plus a lot of patience pays dividends.

[WinterPoet]

For my team, being school-based is an advantage. The school district for my team actually pays for about 60% of our travel costs, and provides us with a lot of opportunities. All of our absences are excused, and teachers actually try to assign less around competition times. Our school, students and teachers alike, supports us a lot and I feel really lucky that we have that. Not to mention that a school full of nearly 2000 hungry teenagers makes food-based fundraisers really easy!

I really think it depends on how helpful your school and district is, because without that support, it's awful to be a school team.

[ollien]

Originally Posted by WinterPoet

I really think it depends on how helpful your school and district is, because without that support, it's awful to be a school team.

+1

I've heard some horror stories of schools making it impossible to order things in time. In our case, we just order things and the school reimburses us using the funds we've deposited with them.

[sanddrag]

We are 100% integrated with our school, to the point of it now being a daily class for up to 90 minutes every school day, all year long. (whoo!). And aside from that, it lets us tap a ton of facilities, equipment, resources, and funding streams. Those teams who believe that schools are evil and you'll never accomplish anything inside of one, well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you're looking at the wrong school, and you're really limiting yourselves in big ways by not associating with a school.