Let's hear it for the heroes of public education!

[seawasp]

In this case, that's sarcastic, although it could be said with honest seriousness in other contexts.

However, today we are cheering Franklin High in Portland (it's not clear from context whether this is Portland, Oregon or another Portland here on the East Coast) for not only effectively killing off their robotics club, but withholding their tools and equipment and, apparently, $7,500 in cash -- all of this apparently raised/provided by the club, NOT by the school.

While there are some reasons given that the school had to shut the club down (though their rules are shown to be rather contradictory on this point), there is no clear reason given that the assets, which are as far as I can tell completely in the ownership of the club, should be withheld.

Comments

[eacole72.livejournal.com]

Reading through the comments, it looks like the guys from Mythbusters are getting the word out on this. I would expect significant public pressure to be forthcoming to Fix This.

[hms42]

Portland, Or.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

thats in Oregon, and I havent seen this on the tv news at all, too busy promoting football.

[kengr]

I just sent it in as a news tip to KGW.com

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

Now, if those kids had used their robot to bomb the tree lighting ceremony, they would have gotten lots of attention!

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

The story is from the Sellwood Bee. It's my neighborhood paper, so I read it when it first got out.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I thought it was, it sure has changed since my Grandma would get it delivered. (I grew up in Sellwood)

[kengr]

definitely Here in Oregon. The "Political Oregon.com" link in the upper left, the mention of the Lents neighborhood, the list of other community papers, etc.

If this gets the attention of the Oregonian or one of the TV stations, I expect the school district to either shoot themselves in the foot or fall all over themselves to return things.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

I saw those Franklin kids at the latest Brickcon. They had some terrific robots.

What a shame.

[kengr]

Thinking on it a bit more, I bet the "logic" being used is that money raised for school clubs belongs to the school, with the club getting first crack at it (and I'll bet that the "first crack" part isn't in whatever rules there are).

But the admin types aren't thinking this thru. If they steal the money by invoking that sort of rule, then once word gets out, folks are going to be a *lot* more reluctant to give money for any extracurricular activity, because they'll be afraid that it'll get "repurposed" like this.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Yep. Pretty much like how the High School I went to had to try and force people to buy combination Activity/Student ID cards. At the start of the year as you went through the supply line you'd reach the student ID photo booth and there were two prices listed. $5 for a basic ID, and IIRC $25 for the ID/Activity Card.

The activity card had a dozen numbered spots on it and in theory you could use it to get into school plays or sports events, with each number being punched out covering an admission fee. Only absolutely no one accepted the card (in fact when mentioning this to a teacher, she replied that she agreed it was a scam, and that nobody even accepted the cards the teachers were given that were supposed to get them into a few events each year for free). The football team's reply was, "Our budget barely breaks even, even with all the fund raising we do. No way we're letting anyone in for free." The baseball team, "The football team thinks they have money problems? We have to beg for a share of the athletics money." The theater people, "What the %@*! They athletic teams have the gall to complain about money? Have they seen our budget? Forget it, we don't care if you're on the school board, nobody gets through this door without handing over cold hard cash."

So what you say? Simply by the plain ID you say? "Oh, gee, but the combo card is so popular it never occurred to us that we might need to actually print the plain ID cards. I'm afraid we're all out."

In one of my shamefully few moments of stubbornly standing up for myself during high school I responded to that by laying down a five dollar bill and telling them it wasn't my problem if they didn't have enough of the blank cards printed, but that until they figured out how to provide me with a student ID for $5 I'd be happy to stand where I want and let the people in line behind me know that the combo card was a scam and that no one took it (which theater and sports people in line were happy to confirm, "Nope, never taken it as long as I've been here."). Suddenly the person at the ID booth went from, "Sorry, can't sell you a plain ID," to suddenly remembering there was a sharpie nearby that they could cross out the numbers with. More amusing were a few people who had already bought combo cards asking if they could return them for plain IDs.

[kengr]

Mot having the $5 card blanks almost certainly counts as "bait & switch" under the advertising fraud laws of most states.

And having the discounts/free admissions not actualy existing would too.

Me? I date back to when we didn't *have* student ID cards (or if we did, they certainly didn't have photos).

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

For added fun there was also the blatantly one sided locker agreement. Which consisted of a short form in which you agreed only to use the school provided combination lock on your locker (which had a key-bypass to facilitate searching the lockers any time they decided to), agreed that any non-school locks on the lockers would result in said lock being cut off and potentially discipline (and would be sufficient grounds to search the locker for cantraband), and that you also agreed that the school bore zero liability for anything that was stolen from your locker. Note that this form was signed only by the student, as it was presented on your first day of school while grabbing your textbooks, etc, so your parents wouldn't be there to co-sign it anyway.

[kengr]

Ah. Of the three schools I went to that *had* lockers, two had combination locks (with a keyhole in the center for school access) as part of the locker door.

You could add your own lock but people rarely did.

Third school was a small country HS that took the kids from *five* towns and still only had a graduating class of 35 the year I was there.

That one didn't have built-in locks. But then again, almost nobody *used* locks.

Of course, that was 1973.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

No, moneys raised as part of a club activity belong to the club. My guess is that there's some political maneuvering going on, either due to intradistrict turf squabbles, or principal being stupid, or something going on between parents.

[kengr]

Budgets are *tight*. And they are consolidating schools and doing other cost cutting measures. I'd not be too surprised to find out that the principal saw the club that didn't have the "proper" sort of sponsor and thought that $7500 would help a lot of things he or she wanted for the school.

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

Heh, nice timing on the article. It is going to go viral just before school starts up again next week. That will leave a mark.

And that was really stupid. I note that elsewhere in other states that if a faculty mentor isn't available then a staff mentor can be substituted. I'm going to guess that the teachers union objected to that idea for that district or the principal thinks they will. But still it is all stupid.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

I'm going to predict that two things will happen.

First, and the one I am most certain of. The school will either announce that it was all the result of a miscommunication and off course the students can continue meeting and using their room and equipment, or they will harden their position and probably start making vague allegations against the students in an attempt to get them to either stop talking or move to another school.

Second, is that with all the attention this is getting, I suspect the kids are probably going to get offers of assistance from people in the town. Someone will have a spare shed, or garage, or some kind of workshop. Someone will realize they can get some good publicity by offering to help with space, parts, or money. In fact, checking the wiki on Hackerspaces.org I'm seeing two hackerspaces listed in Portland, Oregon. I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Brainsilo or Watershed hasn't already heard about this.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

It's Oregon. The principal is an idiot. I suspect politics of some sort is behind it all (parental politics).

[yodachan67.livejournal.com]

to follow up: From "The Bee"

FRANKLIN HIGH RELEASES EQUIPMENT TO ROBOTICS TEAM

Shortly after the appearance of the December BEE, Franklin High School returned to the FIRST Robotics team which it had asked to leave its campus [see prior story below] the equipment of the team, which it had previously told THE BEE had been locked up for inventory. As for the $7,500 the team that it had accumulated through grants and fundraising, and which the school had initially told THE BEE might be retained by the school with the reasoning of its having been donated to the school, rather than to the team – the grants were returned by the school to the grantors, and the remaining cash was placed into an account the team apparently will be allowed to draw upon. The team still will not be allowed to meet and build at Franklin High, even though some participants are students at Franklin High. THE BEE was present when the team was given back its equipment and cash, and we’ll have a story with photos in the next issue of THE BEE.