FRC teams,
I am trying to get a public school policy changed to allow students in our city that go to private school but don’t have access to an FRC team to join our public school FRC team. Our policy allows homeschool kids to join, but not private school kids. It would help to know if you have had this problem and were able to resolve it. I appreciate any advice you can supply.
Thanks, Robin
Well, what exactly does the policy state? I mean technically it is a Public School, which means it is for the public…
A simple reminder to the public school administration that EVERYONE pays taxes to support public schools regardless of whether or not they attend might be helpful. If I ever encounter questions here about allowing home school or private school students on the team, that settles it pretty quickly. Of course we are only nominally funded by the public schools, but all the students travel on the buses.
sadly, it is not for the “public.” It is most school districts policies that in order to participate in extra curricular activities the person must be a member in good standing with the school. If you aren’t a student, then you can’t participate.
If the students want to have an FRC experience in their private school, why don’t they push for a team in their school?
There you have it! So long as the students in question live inside the borders of your school district and their households pay taxes in the district, there really isn’t much argument at all. Now, if the students in question live outside of the district, you’ll probably have to frame your request differently.
in lieu of digging up old threads I will summarize what I know here.
Policy differs from district to district nationally.
Depending on what district you go to you will get one of 3 answers.
a) absolutely positively not a chance - that is what happens in my district. It would take a legal challenge to make it reverse. Total brick wall.
b) maybe - are you willing to do the work to sooth the powers that be.
c) absolutely yes - love to have them around. There are plenty of instances of that happening.
I know that was a completely useless answer but that is pretty much the state of affairs. Hopefully you have a (c) or you could work through a (b). If you have an (a) it would take a LOT of work to get it challenged, willing families and lawyers,e tc.
The issue comes up all the time in other activities such as sports, football, etc.
This is not how most school systems see it. It is a liability issue, simple as at.
Personally, I find it amusing when parents don’t what their kids attending public schools, but want their students to have all the benefits of being a public school student. On a professional level, I think this speaks to the quality of the FRC program across the country.
We run into the same problems in our area. Students that don’t go to public aren’t allowed to participate in public school activities (this includes the local career center). That is why the core group of FIRST people in our area decided it would be better if we started a FRC team built around the entire community and not just one school. We have gotten the local colleges and corporations together to make this, so now we stand with a team completely independent from the school system. This works best for our case, but it has its own huge sets of problems.
This doesn’t stop us from trying to change this. We would like to have to recourses and technology available in the career (machine shop, CADing stations ect…) available to us for use. Most of the teachers are on board with us on this, but like its said before; its a matter of local law/policy that requires a lot to change.
I would like to know if you guys get anything worked out. I’m very interested in this subject, but I’m sorry theres not much I can give back on the subject.
Have you proposed possibly making their school part of the team? Sort of a weird concept, but look at it this way: 1189 is a team for both students at both the public high schools in the district. There are a few private schools in our area as well. I don’t know as to whether we’ve actually ever had a request from a student at those private schools, but if we were, wouldn’t it just be possible to make their school one of the team’s sponsor schools? Wouldn’t mean that your school administration wouldn’t be liable as the students joining would be coming from a different sponsor school? I know nothing about liability law, I only know that we only have to sign one form at the beginning of the year, not one for each sponsor school.
We can not have private / home schooled students on the team.
We are a school team, sanctioned by the school and we meet on school property, etc.
From a legal liability issue, discipline, etc., if they are not a student at the school, then we really have no authority for them. Mentors are taking a lot of “personal risk” working with teams, and the school system umbrella provides a lot of protection if something goes wrong.
I would personally be worried about traveling with a student that did not have to adhere to the school code of conduct and other rules.
If you are a parent and the local school is mediocre, not that uncommon in urban areas, and you can afford to send your kids to a better school just like the US President does, what benefit is there to isolating those children from the public school altogether and more importantly, who makes that decision?
Our team accepts all students within a geographic radius, no matter which school they attend. We do not discriminate. Good luck getting that message across to the level a)'s out there, who clearly have the interests of the children first - NOT.
The issue of liability is more often than not, a crutch. If the program has certified teachers running the operation, then any person in attendance should be covered under the Board’s insurance. How would it be any different than sports? Yes, students from the away school would be covered under their districts insurance, but if the injury was sustained due to the host school’s facilities, they would still be liable, too. Schools allow non-school groups such as Scouting to use their facilities, because they are public facilities. They often require these groups to carry additional insurance to help indemnify the school district, but it doesn’t removal all liability.
Secondly, as a parent who has always had his three children in the public school system and a municipal employee, I find your amusement to parents utilizing private schools misguided. These parents still pay the same taxes as everyone else in the community, as Merideth pointed out (to the best of my knowledge, their are some communities which have separate school district taxes I believe). Those tax dollars do go towards school district budgets in the same proportion as everyone else, yet these people do not receive the same level of service as other tax payers by choice. Then they freely pay additional money to a private institution for education of their children, but this does NOT waive their rights to the same benefits and services offered to other citizens. If I were a school district using your philosophy, I’d be very concerned with the prospects of a legal challenge at some point.
Our school district is much more tolerant of home schoolers, private schoolers, and even out-of-town students since our teamed has formed into a regional group under a non-profit educational corporation. They insist on paid teachers or staffers to protect the districts interests. Home school and private school students are treated like any other tax paying citizens. Students from towns that don’t offer FIRST in their districts are asked to get their home districts to contribute some funding to the program proportional to that district’s student involvement.
Our home district also realizes that they get value from our team. We share donated consumable materials with the school; wood, metals, vinyl for vinyl cutters, etc. The team has also refurbished or repaired several of the school’s power tools out of the team’s treasury, not the Board’s budget. Yes we get benefit from these tools too, so why not show good faith to the district and help them with maintenance where appropriate. Since the Board only contributes less than 20% of the team’s total yearly budget, (the rest is coporate sponsorships, public donations, and team fund raising) the school system is getting more for their money, too.
Hope this gives people some ideas of how to convince a school district to change their minds.
The longstanding TechnoKats policy is that we accept any student having a parent associated with one of our primary sponsors, as long as the parent becomes an active team mentor.
Could you perhaps make it a team rule that the school code of conduct has to be followed at all times? If it’s a team rule, they would have to follow it, regardless of the school (make the school’s policy YOUR policy). Any punishments (should they need to happen) may have to be tweaked a little bit, though.
I don’t know how helpful this post will be as I’ve only been on private school teams (while in public and private school), but one approach might be to frame the proposal as a way to bring more success to the team and the school while reachong out to areas the school previously couldn’t reach.
Possibly transforming it into a slightly more detached after school club might work too, or waivers and permission slips to cover liability issues.
Chris is correct.
It’s more than just adhering to school policy it’s the blanket coverage of liability that comes with being associated with the school and it being a school activity. It brings protection for mentors and teachers that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
I would recommend trying to find ANY other instances in your school (or any other schools/buildings in your district) where private school students ARE allowed to participate in a school sponsored activity, whether it be a club, community event, or even a prom (many schools I know of allow outside students to come to such events, after clearing a small bit of red tape).
Finding an existing example can always help with a “if this other group can, why can’t we?” argument.
The other thing I might bring up in addition to the “we all pay taxes” argument mentioned in an earlier post here, would be to ask: If homeschool students are allowed, how is allowing private school students any different?
The school our team is based out of is a “Career Center” where 11th and 12th grade students can attend for a half-day session from a variety of different area schools (in-district, out-of-district, homeschooled, and private school). Due to this reason, we are in turn allowed to draw members from virtually anywhere, regardless of the school they attend (in fact they don’t even have to attend the career center either, and can be at any high school grade).
Now, in order to attend any events with the team, each student must get a permission slip filled out which also has a section for their home school to give authorization to attend (so if you have bad grades you won’t be attending regardless of what school you come from) which has to be signed by a principal or counselor.
One of the advantages to this system is by allowing outsiders to be part of our team, see our facilities, and interact with the teachers, many of them will, in turn, choose to enroll in one of the programs at our school as well. In that way, our team can act as a feeder for the school itself, which the administration loves, so we get their support.
Perhaps a system like this could be proposed to your school board (or whoever), where you can allow outside students but it requires some additional permissions from the parents, home school, etc.
Anyways that’s my thoughts on the issue, hope it helps, and hope you guys can get this resolved! 
I understand that it’s a liability issue in many instances. Of course, that may depend on where a team meets - in the school, at a sponsor, how much students use tools, etc…
However, I still don’t think this should discourage a team for wanting to include a student in some way. As a guest? By “partnering” with the private school in some way?
True on the liability. We do not meet on school property and our non-profit carries a liability policy. It is very inexpensive for several million dollars worth of coverage. (Great, now everyone is lawyering up to sue the Bomb Squad - new fundraising idea. 
)
I worked with 1884, which was a two school team with a private school and local public school located across the road from each other. The private school provided most of the money, while the public school provided the shop space. That collaborative effort by both schools makes it successful, rather than just having students join “the other schools team.” A joint venture might be more appealing to the administration.
Wetzel