A friend of mine is moving, and wants to join a robotics team near where she’s moving to. She’s homeschooled, and they’ve had problems before with not being allowed to do things associated with schools because of that. I was wondering how many teams have members who are homeschooled. Do any teams have a rule against kids who are homeschooled because of their school?
Unfortunately, our team has rules against it. All student members have to be attending a public school in order to be part of the team. I’m not sure why we have it as a rule, and it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s there.
My team, AIM Robotics, was created because several homeschoolers wanted to participate, and couldn’t get on a high school team. We’re community based, so we have no rules about membership. We have several homeschoolers on the team, as well as some from schools without teams.
It’s been my experience that most high school teams won’t allow homeschoolers. If your friend can’t find a team to join, she could start a community based one. There aren’t enough homeschool and community teams in FIRST.
It would depend on each team. Like my team really dosen’t care who joins the team as long as they’re in high school. (that would include homeschooled i’d assume)…
Teams from private schools obviously have the right to keep their team with closed doors. If you’re not paying tutition for that school then that school has every right to say no or charge a fee to join the team.
Public schools have the right to keep their doors closed to people outside their town/city. However I personally think if you’re paying taxes for a high school to exist your kids should be allowed to have access to that school’s resources and activities (if your kid is expelled then thats a different story). I don’t think a school system has the right to tell people who pay taxes to their school system that their child can’t participate in FIRST, and thats when the parents and studen should call mayor’s office of the city/town and complain.
If you live in Connecticut and attend one of the 20 schools in the Connecticut Tech School System, by law your sending school (public school you’d attend if you didnt go to the tech school) has to offer you to chance to participate in athletics and activites the tech school dosen’t offer.
My team has a few homeschooled kids. in our town everyone pays school taxes even if your child is homeschooled so they are allowed to participate in all actvities. Thank goodness for that cause these guys are awsome. i couldnt imagine my team without them. 
yay jimmy and zeke
Our team, RAPTAR Robotics, is comprised of homeschool students. Over the past few years, we’ve expanded to allowing students from schools who do not have a team yet.
But I’ve been on “all” homeschooling teams for 4 years.
They are more difficult to run, without the financial/official backing of a school, but like said before, we get to define the rules. I have found in my experience that my experience in FIRST through this type of team has allowed for much more growth and creativity. Not saying that public schools dont, (I’ve only been homeschooled for my highschool “career”) but I’m just saying that the way we ran our team allowed everyone to grow and be creative as much as and however they pleased. It also really means alot more “coming together” to make it happen. It takes more work, since you don’t have school facilities, to find a place to build, for example. Heck, this years bot was created in my den, driveway, the Ashland County Library, Minivan of Ashland LLC, etc. I’ve stood outside with a TV Set lamp at 1 AM in my driveway with 3 colored triangles on the ground and a laptop and the bot testing out the color tracking this year.
Obviously, its a whole different experience for us guys.
I’m a homeschooled student, and my team let me join. In fact, they really encouraged me, and many others to participate. I do know there are at least several teams out there who are completely made up of homeschoolers, though. I think it’s sad that some teams won’t let students join because they are homeschooled. When teams refuse to let people join because they go to another school, or because they are girls, or for any similar reason, that becomes discrimination. And when teams discriminate against who can and can’t join, it starts to defeat the purpose and message of FIRST.
Team 330, the Beach Bots, is a homeschool team. As such, we’ve faced some tremendous challenges over the years – most notably in the areas of finding a place to build and in fund-raising. If there are other homeschool teams looking for help or if you’re a team considering whether to allow homeschoolers to join and have questions or concerns, let me know. We’d love to help fellow homeschoolers over the hurdles!
By the way, the concerns raised in this thread relating to homeschoolers are nothing new. They come up every time homeschool students want to compete in high school athletics and other extracurricular activities. Sometimes the problems are related to outright discrimination, but usually it is a more practical concern such as insurance. Many times, a school insurance policy only covers full-time enrolled students. I can understand a school official’s reluctance to allow an uninsured student around power tools.
As homeschooling becomes a more accepted educational option, I am hopeful that many of these other issues will be able to be worked out. In the meantime, I’m hopeful we’ll see more community-based and/or homeschool teams!!!
Penny Ross
Homeschool Mom as well as long-time FIRST mom and wife and
Vice Principal of Hope Chapel Academy
i believe all of team 1317 is created from home schoolers wanting to join in on the FIRST fun! i can’t remember where they are located but email them and find out some info. good luck to your friend.
I am a mentor for 1014, but 1317 is another team mentored by Ohio State. They are composed of homeschooled students and are located in Central Ohio. Here is their link on the OSUFIRST page:
Team 1317 at OSUFIRST
Home Page of 1317
I hope this helps.
My team, 1467 is a team started by home-schoolers from Central to coastal Virginia. In 2004, we had a couple PS kids on our team and our veterans came from RAPTAR, 1132.
I say look around, see if there’s a team that will let you join, and if not then start your own team. (It helps to get the LEGO grant, which is not hard to do. In 2004, we had about 2 members that were doing FLL in 2003, 4 that had done it in 2002, and 2 that had been competing since 2001.)
My team has a thing against home schoolers, but we have a program here thats called Blended Schools and that is basically where you do most of your work at home, but you turn it in to the Guidance Councilors, and you can also take classes at your local high school =) (I am a part of this program). I also know of a girl on my team whom is cyber schooled. I know that they have been giving her trouble about being on the team, but right now the Blended Schools program works nicely. Have her ask the school in the town that she is moving to if they have that program. I think that the team wouldn’t be able to say that she cannot be part of the team, because in this program you are part of the school. And actually, you can be in anything that the school provides.