Multi-school teams

[bstempi]

Hey everybody! I had a general question for anyone out there involved in the administration of their team. I'm the captain of my team and I'm graduating this year. My team threatened to attack me at college every Saturday and drag me back if I don't purposfully fail one of my classes. Back on track, I'm a bit concerned about what will happen when I leave. We were approaced by a local high school and a tech school in a neighboring district. They want to join out team. My mentors are going to meet with them on Wednesday. My mentors share all of my concerns, especially when it comes to cooridinating multiple schools. I know it's possilble because teams like MOE (who is composed of 14 schools) exist. How do teams like this organize stuff? Meetings? Transportation? Liability? MONEY!?! AUTHORITY!?! Can you guys see where I'm going with this? I appreicate any feedback I get.
~Bstemp

[Billfred]

Here's how 1293 survived being three schools (two of them rivals)

Meetings: One build school, organizational ones elsewhere if the mood strikes us.
Transportation: Private cars.
Liability: Get health insurance cards on everyone.
Money: Fundraisers at each school, or together.
Authority: Each of the teachers kinda specialized into their own departments, with one overseeing the whole thing.

It went alright for our rookie year. Next year, it's gonna be even hotter.

[Eric Bareiss]

I was on team 64 for three years and it was made up of two schools and we did have a few problems. The biggest problem is the students not accepting the other schools. It becomes an internal struggle for one school to be on top.

Like you said, who has the authority? Well if you want to make it work, it's nobody. If you are going to let them in you must let them in as equals. This will be a problem mostly with the students. Because your school was the first school, the students will feel better. They will tend to not treat the other students fairly.

My suggestion: don't let them join your team. Push them to start their own team, and help them with anything they might need. I think it's the best solution for everyone. You will still have your team the way it was and both of the other school will be involved in FIRST. It's win win.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

173 is a multi school team, we have 5, but are primarily 2.
We are lucky enough to have a facility in East Hartford donated to us. Most of the meetings are there, mostly because East Hartford has a much different economical make-up than the other school, who can more easily get rides, everyone has to get their on their own, it's a part of being on the team, you have to travel a bit.
The robot is built at the high school with a machine shop (Rockville) and it ususally ends up being kids from Rockville that build it, but we have NEVER discouraged anyone from coming to build, it just ends up that way. Money comes from sponsors to funraisers the team has done together, like a car wash, we have thought about expanding do that we would do things that involve in school activity, but have not yet gotten there, although it would probably happen simultaniously or who knows, depending on the situation.
As for authority, we have one team captain (me) which the team elects, one student liason from each school (elected by students at that school) who coordinates whatever they can with the school. We have the team leader, who is a teacher at East Hartford High, because he volenteered and has been doing it the longest (teacher-wise). We are currently between a Teacher Leader from Rockville because our teacher retired (AND STILL HELPS) but can no longer be an offcial chaperon, thus we use adults and a "team contact" teacher who is not fully committed, but runs all errands, like talking to the principal and is actually coming to atlanta to see what it's all about. Everyone has to be told that they need to listen to a liason, teacher, adult or captain no matter what school they are from, because we are a team, not different schools. Sometimes we have conflicts between what people say, but we're still working on that.
All in all, i can be sometimes really cool, because you get to hang out and be friends with kids from other teams, or hard, because school schedules are different or you don't know each other and have to have some team building meet & greet stuff at the begining of the year. Overall, its a different experience from being on a one school team, can't say better or worse, but you can give it a try or just help them start their own team

[Bcahn836]

We have students from every high school in the county. Which is only three, and the only thing in common is the tech center that students from all three schools attend. Plus friends and family of those, and we even reach out to middle schools. In fact we have an 8th grader whose brother is on the team that is interested for next year.
We do have more students from one school than the others.

[Cory]

Team 100 is composed of students from Woodside and Carlmont High Schools. Woodside students are actually outnumbered by almost 3:1, so we don't have any problem accepting the other school.

we work at Woodside where we have two small rooms and tools. We machine parts at team 972's shop, since a former mentor and team member moved there, as well as a parent's shop. Carlmont is only about 15 minutes from Woodside, so transportation and everything isn't too big an issue.

Communication can be tough, but we have meetings every Thursday night for that, and a pretty good email network.

[John Larock]

MOE 365 has always been a multiple-school team. In fact, we started our team as a co-ed Explorer Post with the Boy Scouts, became an interest group not affiliated with any organization, and have recently incorporated into First State Robotics, Inc.

Our meeting/work area has always been on a DuPont site, not a school. While we typically have 1-2 schools which dominate in terms of numbers (our team is about 30-35 students total), we run the program as a separate entity from any one school, with our own policies, expectations, organizational structure, etc. This has helped us create organization out of chaos.

As previous posts noted, one of our challenges every year is to create a team out of students from all over the place. Having a common identity (MOE green, Miracle Worker, MOEboteer, etc) help, but teambuilding is critical to making this happen. Our expectations specifically state that if students cannot work together, then they cannot remain on the team. This has not been a problem so far (knock on LEXAN).

Insurance is an issue. Since we are a corporation, we need to have liability forms completed by the students and their parents. This is also a criteria for membership.

Transportation is basically everyone on their own. If we are aware of any transportation issues early, we will work on car pools. Our work site can be as near as 5 minutes from school for some or more than an hours ride for others. We feel that we will be open to this, but the student needs to commit to attending a certain number of meetings per season (~75%) or they forfeit their team membership.

We would be happy to discuss this more if you are interested. Feel free to e-mail me personally if you would like to. My e-mail address is John.A.Larock@usa.dupont.com.

Best of luck!

[Jay H 237]

Team 237 is comprised of two schools, Watertown High and Kaynor Tech. The team was founded and operates out of the Watertown school. Several Kaynor students were interested in the team and joined since they didn't have thier own team and Kaynor is only 8 minutes away. These students live in town but attend Kaynor since Watertown doesn't offer certain technical programs. Watertown has a difficult school board and informed us that no one from other schools can join anymore. The current students (2) can stay since they're "grandfathered in". BoE has "officially" cited insurance reasons that there's no way of getting around (we've tried, gave up) even though these students live in Watertown and are technically "Watertown" students.
So in short, it is possible, although it didn't work for us. There are some successful multi school teams but it basically comes down to how well all the parties involved work together and how much they're willing to make it work.

[gburlison]

Team 662 is a multi school team but with one important difference. All four schools are in the same school district. We have received more support from the district leadership than from any individual school. It seems the school board understands FIRST, but the school principals do not.

Our students seem to work well together because they have a common interest in robotics and building things. The only issues that I have seen so far is that the web and animation teams work at one of the schools so the students for those teams come primarily from one school. Robot design and build are done at a neutral site so this is not a problem.

[Andrew Schuetze]

Team 499 is a multi-school team from a single district as well. We have two high schools plus an Arts Academy from which we draw students and staff. It is a struggle for the three years that I have been doing such. The first year it was just me at a magnet campus which was moved to the Arts school...
This year the students really gelled at the regional. We recieve substancial support from the district but this year the individual campuses had to fund raise portions of the travel. There is always going to be an issue on a mult-school team but for our small district we cannot afford to run it any other way. I would appretiate some more posts from single district-multicampus teams on what organzational documents/framework they have in place. Ours has mostly developed ad hoc and I would like to improve upon the lack of clear policies.

Thanks,

APS

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Team 648 is a multi-school team and also a multi-state team. We have been fighting for years to get a place that is even for all members in travel distance. So we got a bussiness to donate some space for us on the Mississippi River. Although it is further for the Illinois kids (mostly b/c they are from the country), they all like to go there and work. Nobody has a problem with the building. We don't have the building anymore b/c they are remodeling.

We also dont have to worry about the rivalry part b/c of the different states. We also have the biggest school in Iowa but not enough team members. I, of course, am not from either Sherrard or Davenport West, I go to Moline and am not supported by my school They used to be part of the team but not anymore. I am what they call an independent member.

[KathieK]

Three things are critical when combining schools on a team: communicating to the schools, teambuilding within the team itself, and organizing all the administrative requirements.

RAGE makes a strong effort to keep our two primary school boards informed about our team. We try to attend one or two school board meetings every year with parents and students in attendance. We send out newsletters and e-mails to our school administrations so they are informed about us, as well as inviting them to attend every event we go to and to come to our practice facility so we can show them what we are doing.

We send articles to the local town newspapers so we get more publicity coverage because we are in multiple towns.

We held a teambuilding weekend at a local boy scout camp in September so that everyone one the team (adults included) could meet and begin working together, and continued teambuilding exercises at each team meeting until the build cycle began.

Fortunately this year all five of our high schools had the same school calendar, and when we had snow days (which cancel any meetings we might have scheduled) they seemed to affect all the schools. We sent out a calendar early in the year with all dates on it that we knew of at that time so that students and parents could look for any conflicts.

We had parents who organized all the different forms. Each high school requires a different set of permission slip forms, volunteer forms, chaperone forms. So a student from Rockville High School would have a folder with a different set of forms in it than a student from East Hartford High School.

Our team name, colors and mascot are independent of any high school on our team. This year our t-shirts say "East Hartford and Rockville High Schools and Friends" so that we can use the same design next year, even if we lose students from our secondary high schools.

[mrs. p]

well, i think a lot of good information has been given and i'm not sure what i can add but wanted to share our "multi school' program. our team is made up of 2 schools within the same district, rivals as a matter of fact, especially in sports. we've been together 6 years and students from both schools participate equally as well. i agree that the three main goals are: communication, team bonding and administrative tasks. we are a year round team, participating strongly in lego league (15 teams, a local tournament and the state tournament) and other required community service during the first semester. this gives the students from both schools an opportunity to meet each other and begin working together. we also try and have unofficial parties where the students can hang out together. during the summer and of course the remaining parts of the year, fundraising is a must. fundraising activities are conducted together - not at specific schools. this eliminates any thoughts of "our school made more money than you" - we're all in this together. the name of our robot is formed by combining both of the school name's together - further cementing the bond felt by the students. all communication is done by email or the website and usually initiated by me. i am the only teacher involved and since we are from the same district, i handle all of the paperwork for both schools. after 6 years, it's coming together! we had both principals and the school superintendent at the florida regional. maybe now we'll get some financial backing from the schools/school board. if you need anything else, feel free to email

surfnski@digital.net

mrs. p