I feel this needs to be said...(Grades & FIRST Dedication)

[Doug G]

Most schools have policies governing grades and extra-curricular activities. Our school is a 2.0 min GPA and no F for both athletics and extra-curricular stuff like band and robotics.

But be careful as Jherbie53 metnioned about excluding students. If your team is made up of all 4.0 students, great, but if they were 4.0 students before FIRST, then I think you're missing an opportunity to bring in a more diverse population of students that can greatly benefit from what FIRST has to offer. Can grades slip during a FIRST season, yep; can we take steps to minimize, sure. But in the end of a year, the general trend is that grades tend to go up for students in FIRST. A study has already shown this.

There are a lot of middle of the road, 2.5-3.5 GPA, students out there that can really benefit from FIRST that I feel get overlooked too often. As a coach, I often try to recruit those really sharp students, but I too have to remind myself to also look for those other students with the skills to do well in our program. I hope we all look to have more of those students on our teams.