Denied rank advance. to Star...any advice

[SeaGull99]

Dbie: Please finish reading the entire thread before passing judgment. We left the doctor's office, then drove directly across the street on our moped to fill the prescriptions. The pharmacist said it would be about a half hour before the medicine would be ready. So, we went next door to the Blockbuster to wait it out and get some movies since our cable box was on the blink. I don't know if you are familiar with the islands, but one doesn't just drive home and drive right back here. The pharmacy is a 30 minute drive one way down a two lane road which is the one and only road that circumnavigates our island. Gas prices on the islands are well above what you guys on the mainland pay. Plus, it was raining intermittently that night. I admit I didn't want to sit in an intermittent island downpour on the moped either, and I was well.

[BrentAllen]

Neilup writes: 1) Agree with it or not, there is no "performance" requirement for the Position of Responsibility. If the boy is in the job for the required period of time, he meets the requirement. The SM is not permitted to put in a "training" requirement, particularly retroactively."

 

and

 

"As far as Den Chief goes, the requirement is to "serve actively 4 months in one or more positions of responaibility." There is no training requirement and clarifications from National have made it clear that there is no performance requirement. There is no requirement to "perform the duties of the position.""

 

I'm not sure where you got this interpretation, but I feel that any Troop that just lets a boy sit in a position for 4 months with no performance requirement has done a huge disservice to the Scout.

 

From scouting.org "unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position."

 

How would anyone be able to judge if a Scout was fulfilling his obligations if he didn't have a standard, or performance requirement to measure against?

 

If the Den Chief never met with a den, he never fulfilled his obligations. I would never let my son receive credit for being a Den Chief over the summer if there weren't any meetings. If one of our Scouts wanted to argue this point, I would have a serious SM conference about being trustworthy and how he felt he had "served actively." Wearing a patch is not serving.

 

Troops have the ability to set requirements for SPL (see SM HB, pg. 13). I know of several Troops that set requirements for other PORs.

[Beavah]

If the Den Chief never met with a den, he never fulfilled his obligations. I would never let my son receive credit for being a Den Chief over the summer if there weren't any meetings.

 

Yah, I don't reckon any good parent or good Scoutmaster would, eh?

 

Nor would any lad of character accept an award on that basis.

 

And I reckon that any lad who showed a lack of character by claimin' such an award would be teased or frowned upon by his peers for gettin' a "fake" badge.

 

Only in da oddly warped perspective of office workers in Irving whose kids are long grown does such a silly notion come up.

 

Beavah

 

 

[tmazz]

This thread started out as a request for advise on how to deal with an uncooperative SM and had degraded into ridiculousness. Does this quote make any sense at all?

"As far as Den Chief goes, the requirement is to "serve actively 4 months in one or more positions of responsibility." There is no training requirement and clarifications from National have made it clear that there is no performance requirement. There is no requirement to "perform the duties of the position." Common sense tells you that one must perform the duties of the position in order to serve actively. The message from national was not saying that a boy did not have to perform any of the duties of the position, it instructed SMs that they could not rate a boys performance in that position and only pass a boy who performed up to a certain level of perceived competency. Comments like this upset me in the same way as parents in sports leagues who demand that trophies be given to players on the last place teams so they don't feel bad. An SM cannot tell a boy who has put in his time that he won't be passed until he does a better job (better will come with more experience), but the boy needs to put in his time and do his best in the job in the first place. A boy who takes on a postition at the beginning of the summer and does not do one activity related to it over the summer should not expect to get credit for time that he didn't work (one cannot serve actively during a time that there is no activity.) (and in all fairness to SeaGull, she never claimed that her son was entitled to credit for this time , others did.)

 

One other thing and this goes more towards learning from mistakes rather than castizing you for then, but I never in all of the comments saw anything mentioned about the SM being called to let him know that the boy was sick and would be unable to attend the training session. If you have a commitment to go to school or work and you fall ill it is generally accepted practice to call in and let the people in charge know you are sick and will not be in. I think the SM was owed this same courtesy. Ad a 15 yr scouter and an NYLT instructor, I know all too well how much prep time goes into setting up a leadership training session and can imagine the SM's feeling when that many boys didn't show. Not that the missing call is any justification for his behavior following the class, but a phone call may have gone a log way in defusing some of the bad feeling that developed. In fact the SMs tirade could have changed to "X number of people didn't show up and only "Johnny" bothered to call me about it." in a situation like that your son could have easily ended up on the "good guy" side of the fence because even though he missed the class, he did the right thing in communicating the problem to the SM. an SM can work around almost anything given enough time to work out a backup Just something to keep in mind as you beginning to forge a working relationship with another SM.

[NeilLup]

From scouting.org "unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position."

 

Precisely what I understand to be the case. Understand that I don't necessarily agree with what I am writing, only that I believe it is the policy.

 

If the Scout is not fulfilling the obligations of the assigned leadership position (Den Chief), the Scoutmaster should remove him from the position.

 

But the Scoutmaster DIDN'T remove the boy from the position. Consequently, the presumption must be that the Scoutmaster considered him to be fulfilling the obligations of the position.

 

This policy is in place to address the problem, which occurred many, many times, that a boy would do his best in a job for a number of months, then come to the SM conference or Board of Review and be told that his job was deficient and he did not meet the requirement.

 

This policy, as I understand it, says that if a boy holds the job, he meets the requirement. If he is deficient in his service, to not qualify for advancement, the SM must remove him from the position. He gets credit for time served until he is removed from the position.

 

Again, not that I necessarily agree with this policy, but this is, as I understand it, the position of the BSA.

[NeilLup]

From scouting.org "unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position."

 

Precisely what I understand to be the case. Understand that I don't necessarily agree with what I am writing, only that I believe it is the policy.

 

If the Scout is not fulfilling the obligations of the assigned leadership position (Den Chief), the Scoutmaster should remove him from the position.

 

But the Scoutmaster DIDN'T remove the boy from the position. Consequently, the presumption must be that the Scoutmaster considered him to be fulfilling the obligations of the position.

 

This policy is in place to address the problem, which occurred many, many times, that a boy would do his best in a job for a number of months, then come to the SM conference or Board of Review and be told that his job was deficient and he did not meet the requirement.

 

This policy, as I understand it, says that if a boy holds the job, he meets the requirement. If he is deficient in his service, to not qualify for advancement, the SM must remove him from the position. He gets credit for time served until he is removed from the position.

 

Again, not that I necessarily agree with this policy, but this is, as I understand it, the position of the BSA.

[derf]

SeaGull,

 

First and foremost, congradulations are due to your son (and you!) for the committment to Scouting and a quality program. I've seen many teenagers who are treated unfairly, never look back (Youth groups, church, sports teams, Scouts, etc.).

 

Second, (this was a lot to try to digest in one sitting), there was a lot of good advice given (some better then others) as to the way your son (and you) should handle this, but, from what I could tell from your postings, he did what he was suppose to do.

 

The SM should not have been yelling at the scouts, it was not HIS training. With JLT, the youth run the training (current and former SPL, ASPL, Eagle's, JASM) the adult should only advise, and should have had a pre-training for the presenters.

If someone has got a POR, just like with "fast start", someone (SPL, ASM, etc.) should have already brought him up to speed on how to do the job during the first month, not 5 mo. into it. The SM conference should not, if schedualed properly, ever be denied. A BOR can be set with the request for no advancement, but not denied the meeting. The BOR is about more than advancement, it is the feedback on how the troop's health is and what is needed to direct the scoutmaster on how to run their program.

 

As to MB mill's at camp... (Kudo's to your son on MB's), nothing should ever be "given", only earned. I earned half of my 34 MB at camp (Eagle '73), and I can't ever remember earning one through the troop. Scouting is about advancement, not nessesarily rank. How to set goals, and then, how to acheive them. MB's expand their horizion's, skill's and knowledge.

 

Sometimes Scouters forget we are advisors, not leaders. When we take a POR in the troop, we have a commitment to the youth, and to their betterment. If our emotions, children, family, job, etc. get in the way of providing a quality program based on the Oath & Law, then we should not take that job.

 

And as to advancement, it says we are to provide "immediate recognition" for those acheivments.

 

Sorry to run on, but it upsets me that more boys are run off, than retained, in many units, by not following a quality youth oriented program. (I could rant on, but I should climb off my soapbox...)

 

Let us know how your son does, tell him to soar with the Eagles, if that is what he wants, we would be honered to share the sky with him.

 

YIB, Fred

[Beavah]

Yah, interestin' juxtaposition between Fred's comments and Neil's quote from da current BSA guidelines:

 

Sometimes Scouters forget we are advisors, not leaders.

 

and

 

Unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position.

 

Da first emphasizes youth leadership and mentoring. The second obliterates it.

 

This policy is in place to address the problem, which occurred many, many times, that a boy would do his best in a job for a number of months, then come to the SM conference or Board of Review and be told that his job was deficient and he did not meet the requirement.

 

Yah, the thing is that this ain't a problem. Replace "job" with "swimming." A boy would do his best at swimming for a number of months, then come to the SM for a signoff and be told his swimming skill was deficient (he couldn't pass the swim check) and he did not yet meet the requirement.

 

That's the way advancement method is supposed to work, eh? We provide opportunities and mentorin', but let the lad make choices, fail, try harder, succeed. Some lads take longer than others to learn how to swim. Some lads take longer than others to learn how to be responsible. We don't remove a boy from the swimming class if he doesn't get it the first time. Nor do we as adults remove a boy from a POR because he doesn't "get" responsibility and service the first time.

 

But we don't give a non-swimmer an award for swimmin', and we don't give a lad who hasn't yet demonstrated active and responsible service an award for responsibility. We just keep workin' da problem.

 

It ain't rocket science. Yeh just do what's right.

 

Beavah

 

[Backwoods]

Well, this post has been thoroughly responded to! Beavah, Lisabob, Twocubdad, Evmori, John in KC, SR540 Beaver, and OGE have all weighed in. SeaGull99 has certainly gotten her money's worth! As the thread has sort of concluded if not stopped, SeaGull99's son has moved on to a new troop and no longer has to deal with the old troop's leadership, I wonder if size has contributed to the problem. When I read that the Troop limits who goes on the campouts, I was like many of you kind folks, flabbergasted. Now there is a word I don't get to write much, but I think you all agree that it is appropriate here. It seems to me that the Scoutmaster has begun to succumb to the dark side of supply and demand. If his troop had 10 boys, I am sure that he would be a little more facilitative of their progress. As it is, he can be fairly fickle with his demands on them.

 

SeaGull99, when I mentioned your son's attendence as a factor earlier, I really wasn't trying to impugn your son's character, I was trying to point out that there appears to be some other expectations that were not made very clear to your boy. He did not go to the meeting, because he was not going to the campout, because he was not one of the first 20-25 to sign up. The scoutmaster could very well value those 20-25 boys more than the ones who are slow to sign up. In his secret scoutmasters handbook (you know, the one he wrote on his own and keeps in his head), your son may not fit the mold he would like for a scout in "his" troop, and therefore, he pressures him slowly into leaving by denying him advancement, catching him "being bad" and refusing to give him information or assistance.

 

I have seen this sort of leadership behavior in all kinds of units before, but particularly in large Troops. These Troops end up with a two-tiered membership, retaining the "A-list" scouts, and shedding the "B-listers" as they go along. So, I am wondering what some of the wise scouters out there think of the idea that sometimes a Troop can be dangerously large? Do ya'll believe that there is a danger in a Troop being over a certain size, or is it just about bad adult leadership? Maybe this is a new thread, maybe there is already a posting on this notion, I'm not sure.

 

[NeilLup]

Some very wise, perceptive and shrewd comments, there, Backwoods. Clearly, you've been around and seen it happen.

 

It clearly can happy that there are "A list" and "B list" Scouts in a Troop. There are some that the SM favors and others that s/he doesn't.

 

I have seen much more commonly that there are "A list", "B list" and "C list" families and parents. There is the in group that says what will happen, the following along group that normally gets to do what the in group plans, and the group that the leadership would be very happy without. In some very good Troops, that latter group can be the helicopter and snowplow parents -- the ones who are only concerned about little Johnny. They likely were very active in Cub Scouting and expect Boy Scouting to be similar to Webelos Scouts. They drop him off late and pick him up early at campouts "Because he is so busy and so many things to do." In the process, he can miss set up and clean up -- what a shame. They will leave a Court of Honor early, right after Johnny has gotten all of his awards. They keep painfully precise records of Johnny's advancement requiremnts and want to enable him to be the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of the BSA. You know the drill.

 

In less strong Troops, the out group can be the ones who do understand the BSA program and are suggesting that it be followed. In those units, the in group may be only interested in their children and their progress and advancement. Over the years, in this forum and others, stories of the goings on of some Troop leadership can be stunning. It can be enough to give a Commissioner gray hair.

 

Can a unit be too big? Absolutely but normally, that becomes very quickly self limiting. A situation like this one where the SM limits the size of campouts is very unusual. It sounds as if the SM has a lot of organizational and program skill or the Scouts would not keep coming back. That's a very unusual situation.