June Updates!
Mark Edelman
All,
a couple of updates for everyone!
- California Law AB 506 and impacts on the FIRST community
- League Participation Info
- FTC Growth Award
- Decode Field Set Pre-Orders
California Law AB 506 and impacts on the FIRST community
California recently passed a law that requires youth serving organizations to provide additional child abuse prevention protections. FIRST is currently working out updates to their systems that will allow us to manage the requirements.
The law requires fingerprinting and mandated reporter training
for adults working with youth serving organizations. Please note
that the law's requirements will likely require additional
training/fingerprinting for anyone that has done similar
screenings with other organizations.
For this coming year, all lead coaches and all Dean's List
submitters will be required to go through the process. Lead
coaches that have not completed their training/fingerprinting will
cause their teams to become "ineligible" based on not having two
"fully screened" coaches.
Additionally, many, if not nearly all, of our volunteers will also need to be similarly trained and fingerprinted. There ideally will be a blog posting from FIRST in the next week or so that provides more details.
Please help us stay compliant with the law and go through the
process early. The FIRST system is new this year and is likely
slow.
The consequences of non-compliance for Playing at Learning include fines, exposure to legal liability, the loss of the ability to use public school facilities, the loss of our insurance and the potential loss of the ability to operate as a nonprofit within California.
We are planning for a Town Hall session on AB506 later this
summer when more information is available.
League Participation Info
Teams that participated in leagues this past season should be
receiving an email in the next week asking for a confirmation of
their participation for the coming Decode season. The email will
be coming to both lead coaches for the teams. Please take the time
to respond to the email. Failure to respond may mean that your
team's spot in a league is no longer guaranteed!
After we confirm returning teams, we will be sending out a league
interest form for teams that are NOT currently in leagues but are
interested in league play. Stay tuned for more!
FTC Growth Award
Some of you paying attention to social media may have seen the recent announcement last week of an award presented to Playing at Learning and NorCal FTC! We were recognized for having the strongest FTC team growth for "Extra Large Regions"!
Thank you for being a part of the community and continuing our
growth at the top of the heap!
Decode Field Set Pre-Orders
FTC has given the local program delivery partners the permission to place "bulk" pre-orders for the Decode field elements. These pre-ordered sets would able to be picked up from the Playing at Learning offices in San Jose on the day of kickoff!
We are considering putting together an order!
If your team would be interested, please send an email to me (ma...@playingatlearning.org) that includes your team number, team name and the name and email address of the responsible adult that will be paying for and picking up the set.
We are asking teams that wish to participate to be willing to pay their share of the overall cost plus a $50 per team donation to Playing at Learning. We are limiting sets to 1 per team.
We will not know the final cost until we get a quote from AndyMark for the combination of sets, taxes and shipping (the sets will be coming via FedEx freight - ideally less expensive shipping)
We will be finalizing the order Monday June 23rd. For the teams that opt in, details on payments will follow.
Stay tuned for more as the season gets closer!!!
Mark & Ashley
-- Playing At Learning Northern California Partner for FIRST LEGO League Jr, FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge ma...@playingatlearning.org (844)752-9576 x700