Inter-school Team Membership

[Danielle H]

If you have a lot of interest from one particular school, perhaps you could talk to the school about merging teams. Morristown and Greenfield did that this year... 393. Morristown had the team and they "adopted" Greenfield. It seems to be working out great so far.

Sorry if that doesn't help.

~Danielle

[Fuzzy]

We "adopted" a senior from a nearby school this season, and we got him hooked into volunteering or mentoring for a FIRST team/competition near the college he'll go to.

I'm not sure about any insurance issues we had, but we did talk with his school's principal about letting him join the team and partcipate in the trips.

[Mr MOE]

As was already mentioned multiple times, the main issue here is liability. There are two main ways to address this. The least expensive is to create your program under an existing 501 (c)(3) non-profit group [4-H, Boy Scouts, Learning for Life - Exploring, etc.]. The other, more expensive option is to create your own 501 (c)(3) organization.

MOE 365 was part of Learning for Life at our inception. We have since incorporated and purchased insurance that covers our members. I would imagine that most situations involving members from two schools joining to form a team, if schools are amenable, could work out a liability arrangement. However, if not, one of the two options above is what you've got. Unless your group has other reasons for creating a 501(c)(3) organization, you might want to go the lesser expensive route.

If you are planning to take the leap to creating a 501(c)(3) non-profit, there have been some very good threads relating to the process. Also, MOE gave a presentation at this year's FIRST Robotics Conference on this topic. Charts are available on the FIRST website.

Good luck!

[Mr_I]

As a teacher, let me say that it is frustrating to see this much enthusiasm in a discussion, knowing that the discussion is off track. Let me see if I can get us back on track.

There is no need or interest in merging teams; there is no need or interest in forming a 501(c)(3); there is no need or interest in getting the Boy Scouts or 4H involved.

We are a private high school with a FIRST team, surrounded by towns whose schools have FIRST teams. (Within 15 miles of our school there are probably 10 schools with teams.) We have students from these other schools that have been on our team, and this is the source of the question:

Is this typical, desirable, or a potential source of problems?

Thanks again for the help.

[Mr MOE]

Mr I:

Sorry to assist in getting this discussion off-track. Some say I am skilled at that

My response to your question is "it all depends."

My follow-up to your question would be "why are these students joining your team when their schools already have teams?"

My second follow-up is "what do the teams at the schools these students are coming from think of this?"

Answer these two questions and you will be well on your way to knowing if you have problems or not.