PackCommittteeChair

Last night we had our meeting with Council and the parents. The meeting was called by Council and attended by: the District Commissioner (modiator of the meeting), the District Executive, our Unit Commissioner, the Cubmaster, the Assistant Cubmaster; myself, the Pack Committee Chairperson, the Tiger Den Leader, a Boy Scout Troop Assistant Scoutmaster, and the parents. It was resolved that the boy is not eligible to be a Tiger Scout. This decision was based upon the June 2004 Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America and the position statement submitted by the Pack's Chartered Organization. The family indicated that they plan to appeal this decision. The Council representatives stated that during this appeal process, their son, cannot attend any den or pack functions due to the fact that he is not registered, nor never was registered with BSA, and therefore BSA insurance will not cover him. Thank you everyone for your valuable input on this issue!

Our Pack and District did do a Spring Recruitment last May. However this family did not sign up then. The first time that this family tried signing up was this fall at Recruiting Night and they shared with the recruiter that their son was in kindergarten (for a second year) and 6 years of age. Is is a tough one! I'll keep everyone posted on the resolution.

Dear ScoutNut, No registration form or fee was accepted and this child is not a member. However the Tiger Leaders do not wish to deal with this issue directly and have told us that they will leave the decision to Pack leadership and Council to deal with. We live in a small town and the Tiger Leaders volunteered last Spring. I believe this boy may have been associated with the Tiger Leaders and/or future Tigers through his participation on a baseball team. Last Spring the Tiger leader may not have been aware of the intentions of the parent to hold him back and switch schools. The Tiger leaders are perferring to stay neutral on this issue and just go about being leaders of their den. I know that the new Cubmaster has been advocating training for the new Tiger Leaders and they are planning to attend training next week on November 10th. I appreciate everyone's input and opinions.

Our Chartered Organization Representative told me yesterday that they were in favor of the Pack following the rules. The parent had approached them as well. They feel that it will be better if they wait until the boy can go through scouting with his classmates and friends. They are awaiting the results of our arbitration meeting next week.

Hi everyone! I am new to this forum and I apologize for the long post. We have a problem in our pack and we need all the advice that we can get on this issue. At our Recruiting Night we turned away a parent who wanted to sign her son up as a Tiger Scout. Her son was in kindergarten and 6 years old. BSA National Policy states that a Tiger Cub is in First Grade or 7 years old. Her son was in the public school kindergarten last year and then this year she put her son in kindergarten in Catholic School. We kindly told the parent that we look forward to recruiting her and her son in the Spring. However this is not what she wanted to hear. Our Cubmaster, upon hearing the parents intentions of joining the Tiger Cub den anyhow, kindly phoned the parent and request that she wait another year. Still ignoring our request, the parent goes out and purchases her son the complete Tiger Scout uniform. And they attend the first Tiger den meeting (held at a school). At this point, the Cubmaster appeals to our District Executive and the Pack Committee for assistance. I call our Council office and they in turn call the National office to see if an exception could be made to the eligibility policy because of the extenuating circumstance that the boy was repeating kindergarten. The last thing that I want to do is hurt a childs feelings. I am told that no exceptions can be made. I say thank you very much. The Cubmaster, with the Committees approval, writes the parent a registered letter again requesting that her son wait. The parent creates havoc and gets the Tiger Leaders essentially on her side (apparently the leaders like the parent and claim she is an asset to their den). A few emails get sent and the Cubmaster resigns and says that he will not be subject to such abuse when he is merely trying to enforce the rules of BSA. As the Committee Chair, I find a replacement Cubmaster (thank God) and fill in our Chartered Organization Representative on the situation. But we still have the problem of the insistent parent and ineligible boy. The new Cubmaster appeals to Council for help and he also meets the parent at the door of the den meeting and requests that she not attend the meetings (incidentally, the new Cubmaster is the same guy at Recruiting Night that would not give the parent the application to join). The parent proceeds to call the new Cubmaster a liar. Council finally decides to confront and call the parent. When speaking with the parent, Council finds the parent to be delightful and only trying to be a good mother. Council then calls National again and says that an exception to the eligibility requirements can now be made. However they would abide by the final decision from the Committee. I get a vote from the Committee and the vote is no, the boy and his parent cannot continue as registered Tigers. The decision is based upon the boy will eventually be a 10 year old 4th grader in the Boy Scout troop and this will not be in his best interest. Also the boy wears the Tiger uniform in Kindergarten and we turned away several Kindergarteners at Recruiting Night. Plus it is a known fact in our community that this parent has done this sort of thing in other community organizations, such as for baseball and church childrens choir. Sometimes the family gets away with it and other times they dont. The Committee wonders if this rule is allowed to be broken, what will the next issue be with this parent and the national policy? Frankly the Committee is exhausted dealing with this and is enthusiastic to pursue planning events for our Packs 50th Anniversary celebration this year. Now Council has decided to call an arbitration meeting next week between the parents and unbiased, volunteer Council representatives and the Pack leadership to hopefully resolve this situation. Why Council did not decide to go with the Committees decision, I dont know! Our current Cubmaster has said that he will resign if the boy is allowed to become a registered Tiger Scout. I am disappointed in the family that kept ignoring the BSA National Policy and I am disappointed in our Council for flip flopping on the BSA National Policy. We believe that rules are rules and they are made for a good reason. Had we been told up front when I asked Council the first time before sending the letter to the parents that an exception could be made, we would still have our amazing and awesome first Cubmaster! Does anyone have any words of wisdom on this issue?