263 needs help.

[JAH]

Some examples are always nice. When you go to the meeting, bring in a lot of info about the teams in FIRST that are multiple high schools into one team and show all of the benefits of such a program. Some of the benefits of multiple high schools are diverse views, bringing together parts of the community, so on and so forth. Although I'm sure you're not going to, I'll just say, don't whine or anything of the sort. Be professional. Gracious professionalism at it's best. See their point of view, and relate your views to it and show that what may appear to them as something bad, may actually be good. Present your team at it's best and look good. Dress up, be presentable. Hopefully everything will work out for you. I wish you the best.

Sorry I didn't have any better ideas on what to do. I try.

-Jas

[Jay H 237]

Definitely attend the board meeting and find out EXACTLY what issues they have with your team. As JAH said definitely present your team. Have as many members as possible go to show support. Let them see for themselves how many people will be affected by the extinction of the team. This would include not only students but mentors, parents, and teachers that devote time to the team. One question I have is with the new teachers you asked. You didn't mention if you asked teachers from both schools. If you asked or can only get support from one school than the other school may feel left out and possible issues may arise.

[the_unknown]

The teachers were asked from both schools . One of the problems faced by the team is that there are no teachers left, and the ones that used to appeared to do it for the wrong reasons.

I am a current member of the possibly non existent team 263.

[Chris Fultz]

Multiple examples of successful programs that are multi-school. Many administrators cannot understand how FIRST works and would assume a high level of competition between schools on the same team. Show them it works.

Try to find an ally on the board. Talk to them in advance. Get some support on the board before you talk to the board.

Prepare a written speech and then give it to people who don't know a lot about the program. You can get good feedback and questions to make your presentation stronger.

GP to the ultimate. Show respect to the board and administration. Show how positive you can be without cutting the other view down as 'wrong'.

Let us know how it goes.

[Billfred]

If it's any good, I'll throw 1293's story thus far out.

We're one district with three high schools (the furthest two being at least thirty minutes away from each other). Two (Irmo and Dutch Fork) are rivals in EVERYTHING. If there is a contest both enter, it's a rivalry.

The FIRST team this year went marvelously. There wasn't any inter-school quibbling (alright, the odd joke about Dutch Fork engineering--we're human) that I know of. The only thing I noticed was a somewhat disproportionate amount of Irmo and Dutch Fork students. Chapin, our third part, is pretty far away from Irmo (where we built), and amounted for about four students out of some twenty or twenty-five. Of course, Chapin is also a much smaller school, so take that as you will.

But if there's one thing I can tell you about talking to school boards...well, here's the short list.

1) Speak slowly and clearly. They won't approve anything they can't understand.
2) Visual aids help. Pictures, slides, shoot, the robot itself can all be useful. Just make sure you don't drone on too long.
3) Like Chris said, overdose on GP (if that's possible).

[Rob Colatutto]

The board members of Sachem High School do understand how the program works and how well it does work there. The superintendent started the team back in 1998 and had a major role in starting the SBPLI regional. The problem of keeping the team alive is not in the administration, but in the method they are using the split the schools, and the obvious adviser problem. Their logic in the split is, two schools, each separate but equal to the other. A club that exists at one school has to be at the other with equal funding. The FIRST team isn't the only club to suffer from this rule, but its the main one. Also, there is some recent sponsorship changes and position changes in the companies who sponsor 263 that will make acquiring any money a difficulty.

After the 2002 season, our main adviser, Carl Erickson, left the team when he was promoted from Regents Physics to AP Physics and wanted to take a break for a few years to adjust to his new work load, understandable. The adviser who did all the paperwork previously, took over the team and persuaded a computer course teacher to co-lead the team. Neither were very interested in managing the program, so as a result myself and the other student leaders ran every aspect of the team in 2003 aside from the paperwork for the school. After we graduated, the team had a very rookie-aspect to it, and the advisor's didn't like the idea of myself and other leaders coming back to help out/train new leaders, so as a result the advisor's were forced to run the team, and saw the amount of time that needs to be invested into a team. They had stuck around for the money until then, but then it just became not worth it for them since there was really no interest on their part. Sachem pays robotics advisor's the same pay bonus as they do to the head football coach. Bottom line, not the ideal FIRST advisor's you'd want to continue a successful team.

My advice to you now is simple, before school starts contact Mr. Erickson and see if he has heard about whats happened, and get his suggestions, maybe he can talk to a few friends and get an adviser. You could also try going to Mr. Mac, the APC Physics teacher. If you can find an adviser, you'll probably have to settle with a one regional dual-school team to pilot the idea and make sure it can work with the busing back and forth method Sachem has thought up for you. Having been a 3 year member and previous team leader, I'll help you guys get things together again if you want it, and I could talk to a few teachers if you wanted me to. Contact me if your interested in giving it another shot.

[Ken Loyd]

Matt,

For the past 7 years Team #64, the Gila Monsters, has been open to students from two different school districts with five different high schools. We are rivals in all areas from sports to state exams, but we come together as one unit when it comes to FIRST.

If there is anything we can do to help, please feel free to contact me.

Ken

[Matt Krass]

I'd like to thank everyone for all their help, we've taken your suggestions to a heavy discussion and we're working on our presentations.

However, a recent turn of events may prove them unneeded, we just find out today the school hadn't completely terminated the program, despite us being told so, we're trying to make a discreet advisor swap from our old ones, still listed, to our new ones without much trouble. We'll be posting our results soon I hope.

Cross fingers for us everyone!