<p>Thanks, midmo!</p>
<p>Science Olympiad is a fun activity but not a fair competition. You can never advance to national level if your school is small. Only one school per state can go to national. The competition is also influenced by the parents. If your school is in a rich neighborhood, your team can get help a lot from parents with science and engineering background.</p>
<p>yeah and lots of specialist coaches</p>
<p>Regarding Science Olympiad -
The specialist coaches and rich neighborhoods don’t necessarily go together. Our son was fortunate enough to attend the nationals in division b - from a small, semi-rural district. </p>
<p>In our team, some events had coaches, others do not. For division B, coachs range from HS students to dentists to roofers to stay at home moms to software engineers. Support from the school district administrators was pretty embarrassing - perhaps due to, as some have mentioned, concern with No Child Out Ahead. However, community support has been able to make up the difference. </p>
<p>In science olympiad, at least, the head coach does not have to be a teacher, although there does have to be some involvement with the school administration. Where the head coach is a teacher, parental assistance (registering for events, running scrimages, fund-raising) can be a great help. My son is a third-year in college, and my husband still volunteers as a coach, with writing tests, and as being a calm and supportive presence at competition. </p>
<p>If you are involved in science olympiad and do have as much adult help as you might like, it may simply be because parents and other community members have not been pulled into the organization. It may take some thought and energy and tact, but that doesn’t mean its impossible. Maybe you have a retired engineer, or an amatuer astronomer, or a local doctor that could coach.</p>
<p>In our state, the difference between the teams that made national and those that didn’t was not so much parental participation and/or coaching, but whether or not the teacher sponsor could treat the Science Olympiad as a sport; that is, some coaches at very supportive schools ran after-school clinics throughout the year and received the same pay supplements as an athletic coach.</p>
<p>My son’s schools never had any teacher that acted as a coach in that capacity. It was definitely kids <em>on their own</em>. As a result, some of the team members were very, very good by the time they got to be juniors in high school. They knew how to do things on their own, where to buy the equipment, how to jerry-rig anything. But, they always fell just a little short at winning the state competition overall; lots of individual event medals, though.</p>
<p>I don’t think my son regrets a minute of the many many many hours he devoted to this activity over the years. He earned all those medallions and ribbons, and he and his friends had a great time.</p>
<p>Now, as far as the <em>other olympiads</em> (math, bio, etc), he did not really have any interest in studying for a written test. I suppose that didn’t look good in the eyes of super-selects, but too bad.</p>
<p>There was an extra-curricular my sister’s daughter wanted to be in as an 9th grader and it was looking like it was not going to exist. At the end of niece’s 8th grade, my sister asked my brother, principal of a not-too-far-away HS, what to do, and he said, “Offer in writing to be the volunteer advisor of the extra-curricular. No one turns down free labor.” Sister (who did not know a whole lot about this activity) was the advisor (even though she had a challenging full time job - they did more on evenings and weekends than they would have normally), the extra-curricular came through, and there were absolutely no negative repercussions. The school had nothing against that particular activity; they were just too stretched to take it on.</p>
<p>Haha i always wondered what made teachers stay after school for 3 hours a day for a few weeks doing Science Olympiad. It’s fun, sure, for the students, but who would sacrifice that much time?? unless they got paid =P</p>
<p>Narcissa,
It would be nice if the teacher-coachs were paid, but this is not necessarily the case. It’s a lot easier to extract money for athletics out of school boards than for the arts or science. The richer districts DO have an advantage as far as going going beyond regionals - but its an advantage, not a lock. </p>
<p>It’s important to remember, though, that admissions officers are aware of this, too: if a district without the advantages makes it to state, and the applicant comes away with a medal, that’s a significant accomplishment.</p>
<p>I just wanted to bump this thread to provide an update on what ended up happening.</p>
<p>I was able to take the USABO open exam the final day they administered it, Wednesday the 13th. A nearby school contacted me the night before, and the teacher there had even gone ahead and made sure it was ok with USABO. I just got my results back and I am a semifinalist.</p>
<p>Thanks to all that posted their advice and prevented the development of a potentially damaging relationship with that “irresponsible teacher”. I guess things turned out OK.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update herman. And many congratulations on being a semi finalist. 
Well done!!</p>
<p>Congratulations! I’m glad to hear you had a happy ending.</p>
<p>herman - It’s good too hear and that’s the way to go. My kid took your approach too.</p>
<p>wow, that’s lucky. i had to go out and push for most of these >.< still don’t know if 'm a semifinalist. gotta ask my teacher tomorrow.</p>
<p>Herman,
I’m so glad that you were able to work things out, and to do it in a way that didn’t hurt your relationship with the teacher at your school. Thanks for updating us.</p>
<p>Good job Herman, it would’ve been nice if the teacher contacted the faculty advisors at neighboring schools for you, but overworked as they are…
Can you imagine a football coach or basketball coach missing the registration date for the big tournament? Most of them are teachers too in our school distrct anyway. Somehow the public would take the place apart if that happened… But science, ah well, everybody’s busy. In our school we strive to make it look good on the surface, but really the teachers just fulfill duties and don’t much care about the substance of anything. Just a handful of dedicated souls who are standouts, and so appreciated by students and the parents. Like some of the faculty that resents them, they have families etc. They are just better time managers, they care about their work and their students. Two of them left us this year, they took their equipment too. They told us they wanted a more collegial atmosphere. The younger kids will now not have any science competition at all, the teacher who took over has done nothing. We also have no math team anymore. Our school last year had intel semifinalists, state fair winners, and a few other national competition finalists. But if the football team loses, watch out…</p>
<p>I love a happy ending! WTG, Herman!</p>
<p>Glad that worked out, Herman! For what it’s worth, we had a similar experience at our HS w/my son’s science project. Good luck w/your future projects!!</p>