momof7scouts

I would like to thank all of you for your input. Reading these replies, as well as incidents that have occurred since I originally posted, have helped me a great deal. It is not actually references or rules that are the issue for me. It is that whatever set of rules the troop has chosen to follow are not enforced on all. While many have said that making rank, even Eagle, is a minor consideration, I disagree in the aspect that the rank is recognition of a job well done and part of what Scouting is about. If the ranks are so unimportant, why even have them. My boys have stayed in the troop because our options are somewhat limited due to how rural we are. My husband and I have done our best to help the troop not just for the sake of our own sons but for the other Scouts as well. I love the boys. They are charming, funny, obnoxious, little smart mouths, but I just love them. I mentioned the issues with requiring one set of boys to have a minimum of a week between SM conf. and BoR while allowing others to do two of each in a single meeting. I mentioned denying merit badges to some boys who did a single merit badge with a parent then allowing another to do three in two months. But the issues are far greater than these: *Average scout takes six months to get troop Eagle project approval, with multiple rewrites done for adviser, SM, and committee. District advisers have repeated told our leadership they are requiring too much. Nothing changes. *Scout finished Eagle project but took 18 months to do final write up because he was so burned out on the initial troop approval. *District adviser told a scout that he might have underestimated hours to complete project. Scout pointed out that the 70 hrs. were just to get troop approval. *District adviser apologized to a different Scout after seeing the number of hours and rewrites he had to do saying no troop should put a Scout through that. *We have Scouts languishing at Star and Life because they have not had leadership position long enough. SM has waited until a boy finished with a position then told him did not do good enough, with no forewarning there was a problem. SM will schedule re-elections at 4 or 5 month intervals, so that if a Scout does not get re-elected to same position, can't get life. *An Eagle going for third palm was told he had to be JASM to earn silver. Scout graduated from HS early and attends college. Troop changed meeting night and conflicts with his schedule. Scout has attended every camp out offered during that time and helped out since there is usually only one ASM present; has helped others on Eagle projects; helped with a community service project leading a crew of younger scouts; earned four merit badges offered on weekends; and ran a station during a troop merit badge session. SM told him this was not sufficient. If he could not make meetings, as an Eagle Scout, he should have been sending out e-mails to other Scouts encouraging them to make rank. The Scout ages out in a few weeks and is petitioning the district to overturn SM's decision. *Our Advancement Chair brings a district rep. to many meetings because she feels she is being bullied by other leaders. *The Committee Chair is in a similar position but due to a couple of parents undermining her in an effort to take over her position. *Several parents are going to district over advancement issues. *While rank advancement may not be the most important aspect of Scouting, we have many boys that have been in the troop for four years, have adequate but not awesome attendance, and are still 2nd Class. *Few Scouts make Eagle, very few have earned a palm, none have ever earned a silver palm in the history of the troop. *Many Scouts just give up and quit. *With all the roadblocks thrown up at boys trying to earn Eagle before age 17, the troop bends over backward for 17 year olds, they get the single rewrite and special merit badge sessions to get them through, even if they have not been active for a year or so. *An SM who will only schedule SM conferences between pancake breakfasts at the church he goes to on Sundays, if he is in town but also insists he is the only one who can sign off on anything above 2nd class. *A rule that states every Scout must get sign-offs and schedule BoRs and SM conf. on their own. Then allowing a couple to have their parents pushing for sign-offs at meetings and parents having the BoR scheduled before the SM conf. (another troop rule.) The parents then pressure for SM conf. since people are waiting around to do the BoR. So, after reading all the advise here, we are beginning the extraction process, moving those who are not in the middle of a rank or Eagle project to a different but less convenient troop. Before we leave, my husband is petitioning the district on behalf of a number of boys who have been screwed over on a number of issues. I hope, for their sakes, he is successful.

I can imagine a few 14 and 15 year old mad as hell that that young kid got two BORs in one night when I was told I couldnt. You are right and in many ways the parents are not doing their sons any favorites. The "special" boys are resented by the other boys who have been working on their own, approaching leaders on their own, and following the rules. Especially the ones who spent 18 months working their butts off to get to the rank these boys got in six or seven, after a single camp out. This is even more true for those going to Star, Life and getting Eagle Palms because they have been denied, over and over, having both an SM conference and a BoR on the same day, and these three got two of each in one meeting. There are some who refuse to be in the same patrol these boys are in. As for the district, the district recently had a "fact or fiction" night at the monthly roundtable meeting. It was made clear that there is no limit to the number of MBs earned by a scout from a single councilor, even if that councilor is a parent and that even if the boy went to an MB college, with the SM signing the card before the college, and came back with a finished blue card for camping, though troop records do not show he ever went to a camp, he gets the MB. (Kind of like doing orienteering in a one hour class.) Blue card presigned by SM, signed off by MB councilor, boy gets MB, period, the end. Can the SM contact the MB councilor and ask how he did the entire MB in an hour? If it turns out that he admits he "fudged" parts, can the MB be denied?

Well, that's why I wanted the BSA guidelines. There have been issues in the past with the troop, especially on Eagle projects, making things far more difficult than they should be. While I empathize with one part, the boys showing up after completing advancement skills and not being able to get things signed off for months and the unavailability of the SM in general, I am concerned with the sudden push of these parents. It is like they are campaigning their sons. The only one standing up to them currently is the chartered org. rep and one ASM, no one else wants to make waves. The progress of these boys has been amazing, over 20 merit badges each, including many Eagle required, as well as making four ranks, in a matter of months. I am not talking fingerprinting and leather working but all three citizenship, orienteering, family life, personal management, communication (also done in a single merit badge college session). Any prerequisites completed have been signed off by....the parents. According to one parent who has a copy of the Advancement Chair Guidelines, if a boy has the blue card signed by the MB councilor, the SM must award the badge. So the boy shows up with a partially filled blue card, signed by the parent, and the MB councilor at the MB college assumes it is legit and signs off the rest of the blue card. (When I teach at MB colleges, they have to bring proof to me that they did it, not just a signed blue card or I will just sign a new one for what I teach and let their troops decide if the first is legit.) Any questioning of the parents' signature is met with indignation, "How dare you question my integrity!" and threats appealing to district and council.

Well, I guess I will just sit back and see what happens here. It is not I that is having the issues with the troop but three sets of new parents. While I understand their frustrations, it took my youngest boy 18 months to reach 1st class even though he attended every single meeting and every single camp out, and actually completed the requirements in about 8 months because he could not get anyone to sign off in his book. But, that is all in the past for me since he is now a Star and moving just fine toward Life. However, the three sets of parents are pushing very hard to get everything signed off immediately, or else. Two were even permitted to have two scout master conferences and BoRs in a single meeting because the parents were so aggressive, even though the official written troop policy has been one per meeting. Never before has a boy made two ranks in one night. They want their boys to make Star by February, at their one year in troop date. One of the boys, he just turned 11, has only been in the troop for seven months and has earned three merit badges with his parents. In trying to talk to them, they get very aggressive, pull out the Advancement Guide, and argue at the meetings. Now they have joined forces and are trying to take over committee chair, advancement chair, and the merit badge program. They also threaten to go to district every time their boys are denied something. Currently, the SM is withholding a merit badge from one of the boys. It is orienteering and the boy supposedly completed the entire merit badge in a one hour merit badge session at a merit badge college. His parents are livid. I am not going to get involved, I was just curious where all the rules are written on these topics. As I said, my boys have passed these issues, for the most part, and I just want to continue teaching at the merit badge colleges and having a good time with the scouts.

Thank you for your replies. The issues I mention I have been able to get through with my own sons, two are Eagles, one is working on his project at this moment, one is a life, and one is a star. I have done but two merit badges total out of the over 150 combined my scouts have earned. It is other boys, new scouts, who are having problems. It is hard for me to watch these new scouts going through what mine did. Boy after boy comes to meetings with his scout book after a camp, asking for sign offs. No one can or will do it. We have many events where one ASM attends with a few YPT trained committee parents. The ASM's son, then, does not get any of the sign offs for the the things covered. This has been a problem. We also have a new scout master who is often unavailable due to his work schedule and other commitments. This has made it difficult for any scout over 1st class to progress in a timely manner. My second son could have earned a fourth palm if the scout master had been able to meet with him for SM conferences more quickly. He will not do conferences during meetings, which, is fine but only on Sundays when he is free. I believe all of these things are at his discretion, but I see some very frustrated higher ranking scouts. The "single" item issue on the merit badges comes from scouts who attend a camp or merit badge college and come back with a blue card missing one requirement. For some reason that I have never understood, our troop prefers the scouts to use merit badge councilors from the troop. It is frowned upon to go outside our own list with the exceptions of merit badge colleges and camps.

Our troop has major problems following BSA guidelines. Some feel it is acceptable to "higher the standard" on many things. I have been attending as much training as possible and getting written guidelines to try to get the individuals upping the standards to comply with BSA rules. I have been able to find guidelines on merit badges (troop limits number of open merit badges and will not allow a qualified registered merit badge councilor to sign off even one requirement for a family member). I have recently completed Eagle adviser training and have guidelines for what goes into the plan. (Our scouts have project plans in excess of 10 pages single spaced, having to cover every possible thing that could go wrong and how they will handle each possibility.) What I have not been able to find our the rules on who can sign off for rank advancement. Our current SM is the only one permitted to sign off on anything above first class and insists only ASMs can sign off on other ranks. No senior scouts can sign for ranks. No parent ASMs can sign for their own sons, even if the parent was the only ASM present at event. Among other problems with this system is that the SM is seldom available. It often takes a scout over a month to get the sign offs when all rank requirements are complete. Getting a scout master conference for Life took five weeks for one scout. Does anyone know where I can find the official BSA policy on who can sign off in scout handbooks?

Our SM and CC are trying a "new" policy with our scouts to try to deal with the lack of attendance/participation for those older life scouts as well as issues with lack of advancement (due to parental apathy). It is also to address the incredible lack of participation by parents. Starting one month before recharter time, each scout and a parental figure has to meet with a committee member (or ASM or SM), resign up, pay, have parents view list of available ways to help (and hopefully chose one), then the scout is supposed to discuss what their goals are for scouting the next year and the adult scouter will help them map a way to achieve those goals (with the parental figure there). We are hoping this keeps the scouts more active, let's them see what they need to do to get where they want to go, gets more parents involved, lets the parents see what their son/s need to do, and will allow purging of scouts who have been rechartered for a while without ever attending anything.

Ya'll are going to love this. SM dad has presented an authoritative e-mail to some of the people fighting for the 60 page dissertations. He has quotes from BSA, council, and even some from all of you! Trying to get it through to them that it is not just HIM that says this is over the top.

SM dad is already working on all of this, biggest concern is life scouts. He, the CC, and the advancement chair are meeting with the DAC to write up "official" new troop Eagle process. He is in the process of contacting the floundering scouts that have started the process and aren't progressing. He is going to insist that any scout that has been sent back a third time, goes to him not the EA, if they decide to even keep them. First task, fix the system. Second task, get the boys in the process moving. Third, get those not even started motivated. Again, the current crop of leaders had this thrust on them from the time they came into the troop. They did not know it was not BSA rules. All are very interested in fixing it. Neither of the EAs were at the meeting so I am not sure how they are going to feel about it, and to be honest, I don't care. On another note, Son two is really moving on this. He has two big motivations, one positive, one vindictive. He wants to get as many of the filled backpacks to the shelter as possible before Christmas. He also wants to get entire project completed before January since the EA said there was NO WAY to even get it approved by then. He has also had help pouring in almost faster than he can respond. He works in the office at the school he attends and the administrators love him. When they found out his project was approved, they announced it to the school, had him present his project at morning assembly, are handing out his shopping list to all students, and they had been collecting things for him without telling him! He already has some backpacks and three large rubbermaid containers filled and it was just approved Saturday!

SM dad and I went to a committee meeting tonight and this issue was one of the topics. ALL of the people in this troop came in after this policy was in place and none was aware that this whole thing was neither a district or council policy. There is one boy who has had his project plan rejected 15 times, one who finished project but is sure his after action part will be disapproved after what he went through for initial approval (he finished project 18 months ago) and 11 life scouts that have been that rank for more than two years, many of whom, after having heard what others went through, don't feel Eagle is an option for them. The few projects that have gone through are literally sometimes about 50 pages long, some are revamps of the few previous projects that have made it through before! How's that for encouraging innovation. Additionally, at district level there is one Eagle committee person (don't know official position name but he sits on Eagle BOR) and if it is not a construction project, he will not approve it. He tried to disapprove a "collection" project at the BOR. Took the boy over a year to get it to that point and his was one of the 50 page write ups. SM dad is livid and said troop either changes or they can find new SM. Don't know what he can do about the one district guy though. I am really grateful for all the help I got through this forum. Son two did not know what to do and SM dad was unsure how to proceed. We were fortunate that we had been in another troop and district so knew this was not necessary but just did not know how to proceed. So thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Son two got the final signature at 10 am yesterday and by 6 pm was at a cub pack meeting presenting the project to get them involved!

IT'S APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The DAC reviewed his project with him today and said it was the most detailed project he had ever seen, a master's thesis! (He also said our troop is obviously broken and SM dad needs to fix it or move to another troop.) Son two is elated. He feels his work has been vindicated and he is excited to be able to move on. He is also more than a little irritated because he found out the proposal he submitted on a previous project should also have been approved. He would have had that one finished by now. Oh, well. So Son two will move on and I guess SM dad has his work cut out. There are a whole bunch of other issues to deal with besides this one.

I only know what goes on in the troop from the perspectives of three sons who are in the troop. I try not to compare it to the only other troop that we have been in because no one wants to hear "but in out old troop". However, my sons have had to fight for every single rank advancement they have received. My littlest guy in the troop is eleven and I watched him take his book to meeting after meeting trying to get rank sign-offs for a camping trip. Everyone was too busy to sign off at camp, and yes he tried to get them there. So when they came back, he carried that book to every meeting, only to be told over and over, "I don't remember you doing that." Troop policy says relatives can't sign off so his father and two life brothers were unable to sign off for him. Finally, the one working on Eagle now, starting going to the leadership with him trying to help. Eventually, he got all the signatures but both of his brothers did sign some and were prepared to stand up to any who questioned the signatures. This has been not be the exception and, by the overall lack of rank advancement, I do not believe my sons are unique in this. The only thing they have going for them is that they know it should not take a year to make tenderfoot from previous experience so they push when they know they have completed requirements where some of the newer boys who don't know what to do just don't progress. There have not been very many boys making Eagle in the troop compared to others. A year ago we were at an adult recognition ceremony and I overheard one of our ASMs commenting that another troop had an absurd number of Eagles for that year. I did not think much about it at the time but now I don't think the other troop had too many but that we don't have enough. Now I know why. Last night SM dad talked to the DAC about what to do for the troop. (Son two is going to take his stuff to this DAC who is going to personally take care of it.) I am not sure of the details but I think the overall sense is that the CC and previous SMs have allowed this to get to this point and now SM dad is going to try to fix it by making the CC and committee take charge of approvals and have EAs guide and provide knowledge but remove them from the approval process.

The closest I can tell, all worship this man as the founder of the troop and my son and his father, though scoutmaster, are outsiders. Although I have been a den mother for fifteen years with three different packs (and have all the training you are supposed to get for that) and I am trained to lead a venture crew (my daughters did not like girl scouts but liked RAMS crews), I have had little to do with the troop because it meets the same nights I teach martial arts. My son is going through his project for revision 8 and I guess he is trying again to meet with the DAC. If this does not work, I am done letting his father tiptoe around and not try and offend all the powers that be in the troop and district, I am driving him and his folder of paperwork to council.

I am still having a hard time understanding all the "rules" on the eagle project. I really want to because I do have three more sons who want to do this. Where do the additional rules come from? Our council has this to say about the plan: "Plan your work by describing 1) the present condition, 2) the method, 3) materials to be used, 4) project helpers, 5) a time schedule for carrying out the project. Describe any safety hazards you might face, and explain how you will ensure the safety of those carrying out the project." For the CC: " review the Life Scout's Eagle Project plan, address any safety, scheduling, unique resource requirements, and other issues as necessary." For the DAC: "review four issues: 1) Is the project benefactor valid? 2)Is the plan feasible 3)Is the plan safe? and 4) How will the Scout demonstrate leadership" There is nothing in any of this about the use of the pronoun "I" or the grammar and punctuation, nothing about minimum hours being over 100, nothing about addressing safety issues that do not concern the project, nothing about total man hours, nothing about having the plan so well written a total stranger could take it and do it. Part of my issue with this is that some of the "required" work son two has done has been a waste of time. Example: He stated in plan that Cub Scout CCs would be contacted to see if cubs were interested in working on an Eagle project. EA told him to contact cubs directly, through e-mail, and have a copy of proposed e-mail in plan. Son two wrote out proposed e-mail and attached it but CC has told him he may NOT send e-mail to cubs but may come to a pack meeting to present his project to the cubs. Even if parts of the plan do not work out as he intends, that does not mean the project will fail, there is even a place to cover this in the workbook. The council asks if the project is "feasible" not perfect.

"The reason your son got turned down by district is because he has to have a signature, not because it has to be the adviser's signature." Nope, he has the signatures, but the DAC said that he needed the Eagle Adviser signature too. SM dad pointed out that there is not even a space for him to sign. Since son two is not getting the time of day from anyone, SM dad spoke to DAC for about two hours. DAC said to take it to EA one more time. Did that tonight. Tonight EA wants plan reorganized because son two has written up everything so many times that it is too lengthy and repetitive. Wants all "I"s taken out, must be in third person. Pulled out a calculator and discovered that the manhour estimates at the end of each stage did not total the estimated total manhours so wants them redone in bold and a correct calculation. Told him that he should not be contacting organizations for help (which he previously told him he needed commitments from) but that he should have others do that for him. Told him he should be relying more on boy scouts and did not like the help he was getting from the martial arts school, girl scouts and cub scouts. SM dad is going to contact the DAC again tomorrow.