What member go to competitions?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

I can certainly appreciate that having passing marks is a pretty reasonable expectation; more so when, as you suggested, exceptions can be made based on other circumstances. I was addressing the idea that "the moment grades drop" students must choose schoolwork over extracurricular activity, no matter the circumstances. If your grades drop 5% from 92% because of FRC, does that mean you should be excluded? (You've clarified your position, and it doesn't look like you meant to suggest this.)

Of course not, all I mean when I say that grades shouldnt suffer is that you shouldnt fail a class because you were spending all of your time at FIRST. Learning to manage one's time is an important lesson that many of us have learned from FIRST.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

But again, I'm thinking of a different set of students: the ones who might not be going to university at all. (I could have been more specific about that.) While I realize that my example was a bit of a false dichotomy, my point was that for some of them, it would be more beneficial to focus on interpersonal skills, rather than academic ones.

Going back to the Student A and B example, Student A is university bound and Student B is not, they do the same thing on the team, Student B is an Introvert and A is not. They are both failing Honors English 11. Do you think it is appropriate to accept failure from one of them and not from the other? Yes it would benefit B to go, and it might inspire him but what message would it send to A? Is it a message we want to send?

The difficulty in these questions is the fairness. The reason for such rigid rules is partially to protect mentors from accusations of favoritism. The real important thing is to allow an appeals process in which the mentors (or a board of them) meet with the teacher, the student, and the student's parents and discuss steps that must be completed in order to regain the right of traveling. Make sure that students and parents are made aware that the appeals process will be handled individually and privately on a case by case basis.