Nicholas2014
newbie
Posts: 2
Reg: 02-05-14
|
02-05-14 06:40 PM - Post#166040
I'm the president of a club at Allen High School and about 12 of our members have been studying hard for an upcoming competition that involves testing your knowledge on current affairs and global economics. We've tried to meet with administrators to make it an excused absence many times and we keep getting redirected by their secretaries who seem to only want to allow adults to meet with them. This is normally understandable but our club has not been able to compete in this competition before, it's our first year and there are no adults or sponsors that have experience in the competition who would know better than us the logistics of the matter.
The competition is called WorldQuest and is a nationally recognized competition that Plano West has won 3 years in a row. It's an amazing opportunity and I'm so impressed by our members and how they've developed work ethics and motivation all on their own. The issue is that when we were finally able to contact the admins, it was through our club sponsor who teaches a very demanding AP course, she asked them for permission for this competition and helped a lot by providing us with the necessary forms. However, we had preferred to meet with the admins ourselves to get all the details as we had foreseen what would happen next.
After receiving confirmation that once our forms were filled out we may attend the competition, we purchased the registration packets and resources necessary to compete (My Vice-President and I paid out of pocket because as you may know this school doesn't exactly like funding academic extra-curriculars...). Today we received an email from our sponsor saying that the whomever she was in contact with just informed her that only UIL competitions may receive excused absences. I have several problems with this.
It was never once implied that this competition was affiliated with UIl so I don't understand why they gave us confirmation operating under the assumption that it was UIL. No fliers or websites that we provided had anything to do with UIL. In addition, many field trips are permitted that have nothing to do with UIL nor do some of them even have academic merit. When I was in Academic Decathlon we had funding, transportation and excused absences. The Choir went to New York City last year to site see and that was all the way across the country.
I'm simply asking the school to permit an excuse for a student academic competition 40 minutes away. For one day out of the entire year. We already paid for registration after our initial confirmation so I don't understand why it was rescinded. They said it was a rule regarding the UIL matter but I find that hard to believe since many other clubs and institutions at the school travel for reasons not related to UIL.
The importance of the excuse absence is that most of our participants are Juniors, taking full AP or IB courses. That's 6-7 college level courses each. If you miss 3 days of school and it's unexcused, you are required to take your final even if you have a 98 in that class. These students have AP exams, they can't afford to study and take a final they are over-qualified for. In other words, they can't just skip school that day, they need to save the absences for sick days or may have possibly already used them. This school has barely recognized what I feel are reasonable requests when our sports teams and such receive all sorts of amenities. I'm posting this to garner support and ask for advice on the matter. I respect all of the programs and institutions at this school, I appreciate Allen's commitments to its teams and players, we would just like to be a part of that.
So do you guys have any idea what we should do from here, what we should say, who we should talk to? If so I would greatly appreciate any and all responses. Feel free to ask questions for more details.
My name is Nicholas Seid, I'm 18 and a senior at the high school. The club is Junior World Affairs Council.
Edited by Nicholas2014 on 02-05-14 06:45 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
|
jogo
enthusiast
Posts: 1475
Reg: 08-31-05
|
02-05-14 10:45 PM - Post#166042
In response to Nicholas2014
Can't your parents just write the school a note telling them you need for be excused for an academic competition? My daughter, who was a senior last year, went over the allocated three allowed days for college visits. She just notified her teachers in advance which days she would be gone and I wrote notes to her house office upon her return. No one questioned anything and she didn't get any unexcused absences. (She was in all AP classes too.)
|
Nicholas2014
newbie
Posts: 2
Reg: 02-05-14
|
02-06-14 01:33 AM - Post#166043
In response to jogo
In theory that would work but that's because the school has separate allowances for college visits. I believe you get 5 days or so. They do in fact count as excused absences but you often need to verify you visited a college. That's why they didn't just allow us to go to the competition.
That does give me an idea though. The competition is technically held at UT Arlington. So perhaps if they just asked their counselors and were completely honest and said, "Hey, I'm going to visit this campus but also compete in a competition can i have the day off?" the counselors may make an exception. It's certainly worth a shot. Thank you for your advice, i'll be sure to run this by the rest of the officers. I appreciate it :D
|
 Debbie
enthusiast
Posts: 606
Loc: Allen, TX USA
Reg: 01-24-00
|
02-06-14 07:11 AM - Post#166044
In response to Nicholas2014
Nicholas,
Check out your Private Messages.
|
|
