As a rookie team just entering our first off-season we have several issues that need sorting out. First off we did very well, our robot performed well going to the semis at waterloo and averaging 40 points a game. (Not bad for a rookie team:D ) But now that we are in the offseason issues arise. The main one being our teacher mentors have lost interest in FIRST. They see no need in meeting for fundraising, teaching skills to younger members, recruiting, and outreach. The students on the team are very interested in accomplishing these goals. As a team we want to have better team organisation, a better program, more funds for next year, and overall put out a robot that the team can be proud of again.
The other issue is the school board. At first we thought that we could avoid the issue by just meeting without the teachers as we have several parent mentors that are willing to help us out, but the school board says that we can not have a school club or team meet in the school without a teacher running it.
So now I come to my main question, what can we do to resolve this issue; where the kids want more out of the teacher mentors than they are willing to put into the program?
I feel for you. I can’t say I’ve been in that situation, but your best chance is to plead the case to the school teachers (and maybe the school board). The program isn’t just about the competition (as the name implies), it’s about the skills you learn working with a team on a very complex mechanical and electrical project. Make it a point of pride. “Your school has a FIRST Robotics team. That’s quite an honor. Do you know how many High Schools in the US have FIRST Robotics teams?” Demo the robot. Do whatever you can to change minds.
The funny thing is we are not allowed to demo the robot because it is once again “school property” and we need a teacher present to use it. We really are in a sticky situation.
We have been unable to find other teachers due to the fact that no one really wants to put in the effort to run a full FRC team. We do have parents that are willing to though
Right, so let the parents handle the running of the team, but see if you can get a teacher to sit in the corner and grade papers or something during meetings. We have an FTC team who did just that for a year.
Does your school allow adjunct teachers? Might want to look into something like that. If a few mentors can get approved as adjuncts it might solve some issues.
See if the school board can designate parents or mentors as something that will allow the team to keep meeting, use the robot, etc. without the teacher mentor actually being there. Maybe “Teacher’s Aide” or something like that.
The other option might be to work independently of the school for the summer at an offsite location (maybe somebody’s garage?). Pool resources and build a demonstration robot–it doesn’t have to be FIRST-legal, just cool.
If you were really desperate, and you had a sponsor or two who gave a lot of money to the team, asking them to put some pressure on the school board/teachers might also cause things to happen. (“We gave you some money for X, and we’d like a demo of X at our place during the summer,” would be one way for a sponsor of just about any school activity to put a little pressure on a school board. It’s just barely hinted at… but it can be there.)
Is it possible your teacher/mentors are just burned out from the build/competition season and need a break but will be ok in the fall, or are they done-done? Can you meet off-campus for some of your intended off-season activities? Can you recruit other teachers to help?
You could maybe see if there is a coach or mentors from a nearby veteran team or somebody from FIRST Canada that can come to the school to talk to either the school administration or the teachers. Maybe somebody like that would be better equipped to discuss with your teachers any problems that they have developed with the FIRST experience and resolve them or maybe find a compromise. Do you know why your teachers have lost interest?
If you end up in the last-ditch situation of having to re-found the team separate from the school like EricH suggests, nearby teams may also be able to lend you some parts to make a demo bot with until you get your KoP next year.
That was NOT my suggestion. My suggestion was to operate independently ONLY for the summer, building a demo robot with non-school-related parts/funds possibly, until next competition season rolls around. Remember, it’s not an official school/team activity–it’s just that everybody doing it happens to be on the team, somehow.
Going along with getting a teacher to be a sit-in mentor only, you can really use that situation to funnel in the teacher to become a full-fledged mentor. You MUST realize that having a sit-in only teacher is not a permanent fix; although that is a solution, sustainability cannot be assured if there is always that possibility of the teacher simply dropping. However, if you do obtain a sit-in teacher, it would be a great idea to try to pull them into the team - very slowly of course. Start asking them to come to some events, maybe even tempt them to lead some… They will surely become a major asset to your team, and the team will become a major asset to them.
This is absolutely correct, and I should have mentioned it when I posted before. Unless you get the supervising teacher involved, and at least somewhat interested in the team, they’ll eventually dislike showing up just to sit around, which is not a good situation.
We lost our teacher/mentor in 2008 and ultimately went independent. I do not recommend this approach (it’s really rough and requires very high adult personal commitment), but we have made it work, at least so far (sustainability is always an issue).
Our founder and head mentor was forced to leave the team and teaching for health reason in the middle of the 2008 build season. We had a “sit and watch” replacement for the remainder of the 2008 season, but after this we needed to find a new home. We tried but failed to recruit a teacher/mentor to replace our founder. We had school board and school administration support in this effort, but it failed anyway.
Since then, we incorporated. We hold our own liability insurance. We rely on donated space (and we move frequently as a consequence - last time between Christmas & New Years (Yikes!)). The FRC team is competent (making it to Einstein for the first time this year). We’ve grown our program, operate 6 FLL teams and last year hosted an FLL scrimmage and qualifier.
The team retains a very close relationship with the local school board and school administration. They appreciate but do not (and can not) support us.
But this is a hard road. Work with your school if you can.
You don’t necessarily need to look for one teacher who can attend every meeting; it’s not surprising that that’s a pretty big commitment for teachers that may not even know much about FIRST. Maybe you could try looking for one teacher to come in on each day you normally meet, and then try to figure out build time later… My team did that last year, and while it may not be optimal it worked out OK.
My team held an open house at the beginning of the year. Parents, Board of Ed, and all the teachers were invited (even from our middle school). We prepared by making our warehouse extra spiffy and had each committee (or sub-team) head present the tasks they carried to move the team along. If you get one or two teachers to help over-see this, you could probably get more thereafter.
I have to ask now. How broad is your team? I’m sure that by opening up the tasks your team does, you can get more teachers interested. Somehow, teachers on my team seem to come in from completely different sides of the “science” field. An english teacher comes in occasionally to lend a help with Woodie Flowers and Chairman’s. The school art teacher is a regular and helps with t-shirt design, crafting, etc. As a rookie team, I think it would be great to start looking at how other tasks can help improve the robot other than controls and mechanical.
Another question, how many teachers have you directly approached and asked for their support? Ask them directly what you would like them to do. An art teacher may be intimidated by “robots”, but explain what they could help with.
