Does your team charge a fee to join?

[mman1506]

Our team is debating adding a small fee (~$50) to join our team due to a larger number of students (75~) than previous year to cover the additional cost of transportation. Traditionally plans of adding a fee have been shot down due to being located in a public school with a wide range of income levels.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by mman1506

Our team is debating adding a small fee (~$50) to join our team due to a larger number of students (75~) than previous year to cover the additional cost of transportation. Traditionally plans of adding a fee have been shot down due to being located in a public school with a wide range of income levels.

We don't charge a fee. However, we do require students pay a portion of their travel costs normally their portion of the hotel bill. We have so many trips and things that a one time fee wouldn't really be fair for some of the students on the team. We have some members that never even attend competitions, they just prefer to come after school sometimes and that works for them.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

We have some members that never even attend competitions, they just prefer to come after school sometimes and that works for them.

That is better than having students that rarely attend meetings, but prefer to miss school for the competitions.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

That is better than having students that rarely attend meetings, but prefer to miss school for the competitions.

That one we don't allow to happen, well at least not often. Competitions are a privilege not a right.

[Mark Sheridan]

Many public school teams have fees. When I was on 766, the fee was $200. This was similar to many of the sports teams fees. There was school criteria for financial aid. I don't recall the details but from the team perspective we would receive paper work identifying students who meet the financial aid criteria and waive the fee. edit-now illegal in california
https://www.aclu.org/blog/human-righ...-fees-students

hopefully, your school has that criteria already established.

3476 and 3309 have students pay for some of the travel expenses like hotels.

[Jon Stratis]

We charge the same activity fee as all extra-curricular sat the school. I believe the school itself has a scholarship fund to help underprivileged students pay those fees as needed.

[Michael Hill]

We don't charge a fee, but it sounds like you could benefit from a similar system my high school marching band had set up. Every student had a band "account" and all fees related to participation were charged to that account. We were responsible for paying off the account. We could either pay it out of pocket or pay it with fund raisers we had throughout the year. There were some people who could fund raise several hundred dollars and that would roll over to the next year. Whatever was leftover when they graduated got distributed to the other students accounts.

[tr6scott]

We used to have a fee of $200 per student. We also had a plan in place to not deny access to the team, if you could not pay. We were also getting support from school for cost of registration. Team did not pay for travel, we competed in Michigan District system, so we had access to local competitions. Almost 100% of funding went for robot parts.

Two years later we were told by the administration we were not a pay-to-play school district, so we could not charge a per student fee. We were also told that our fund raiser of manning a state licensed charity poker room, (on two weekends a year buy adults over 21 years of age) would not be allowed, as it didn't look good for the school to be associated with Gambling. (In Michigan where schools are funded by a state lotto?) These were tough blows to the program.

Fortunately, We picked up some GREAT corporate sponsors, first with a NASA grant for veteran teams who had lost funding, then with Chrysler.

Last year we were able to support some student travel costs, for the first time, and we were able to support our local FLL teams, and FTC team with funds from our great sponsors.

[safiq10]

In the past we didn't have a fee, but now we have a fee of $100. Members can either choose to pay themselves or they can fund raise for that $100.
We are still working out the kinks for this year and the major problem we have right now is if a student works to fill out a grant (with a mentor) does that cover his or her expenses?

[Kingland093]

We charge a fee of $50 which is pretty low compared to the $300 or so that other school sports cost. we haven't had issues (yet) with students being unable to pay but if so it would probably be handled on a case by case basis

[cadandcookies]

While I was on 2220, the participation fee gradually went up over the 4 years I was on the team. As robotics is an MSHSL-sanctioned competition in Minnesota, our school required a $50 fee (which I was never really clear on where it went...), and the team, being very large every year I was on it, had a gradually raising cost for t-shirts and other expenses. Our faculty mentor was very insistent that we kept the fee as low as possible, and if a student couldn't pay, the fee would be reduced or waived completely. A family's financial situation was never a barrier for participation on the team. I believe the total cost was about $150 my senior year.

We also had trip fees for the double DECCer and Championships when we went, but we tried to keep those as low as possible as well.

[PayneTrain]

422 has existed for 15 years and has never charged club dues... until this year.

Demand for the program has grown to a point where we are scaling fundraising to students participating and we can still barely keep up, so we're asking families to contribute $100 for required team apparel and other expenses. Half of that will go to the apparel of 3 shirts (a robot shirt, team shirt, and competition polo, with possibly a nametag) We're hammering out a program to get students unable to pay the money can get their dues paid, and everyone gets a "free trial" as provisional members until kickoff. Members also pay a subsidized fee for travel events and they are also able to receive need-based funding for that if necessary.

We're actively working through long-term plans to meet a maintained high demand for the robotics program and we see maintaining the dues are a part of that future.

[Billfred]

On Garnet Squadron, every kid has to be a 4-H member ($10 a year) so there's that. Our expectation for this year is that every FRC student brings on or retains one sponsor, though half of anything raised (including by fundraisers like selling LED light bulbs and working USC football program sales) gets applied to their travel costs.

That said, it does not have a big sponsor to satisfy the requirement. Getting the funding is important, but it also means our kids will have to be able to talk effectively about the team and what we're trying to achieve. Sneaky, no?

[sanddrag]

In California it is illegal for any public school to charge any sort of fee or require any materials whatsoever for participation in any school sponsored class or program. A student could show up to class without a pencil, and legally, we would have to provide a pencil. Football teams cannot require uniforms that cost money, they must be provided or optional. Basically, any school charging for anything that is a requirement for participation is in violation of state law.

We do require students to sell 5 E-watt LED bulbs (very minimal requirement). Students get one T-shirt and one regional with transportation "free". Students pay 100% of travel costs for any additional events, and we provide fundraising opportunities to offset those costs. It's far from ideal, but we do not have the funds to cover travel costs.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

In California it is illegal for any public school to charge any sort of fee or require any materials whatsoever for participation in any school sponsored class or program. A student could show up to class without a pencil, and legally, we would have to provide a pencil. Football teams cannot require uniforms that cost money, they must be provided or optional. Basically, any school charging for anything that is a requirement for participation is in violation of state law.

Man am I out of date. This is what I get for mentoring a private school for the last three years: https://www.aclu.org/blog/human-righ...-fees-students

I guess this was set in 1984 but many California schools have been stretching the definitions of "asking" to pay a fee. For the record, I "had" to pay a fee or the sports team was gonna fold. So go figure. Considering I did not like the coaches, maybe I can get my 200 bucks back?
http://education-law.lawyers.com/sch...ying-foul.html