Time Extensions for Eagle

[packsaddle]

He didn't finish the requirements before he was 18. It doesn't matter that adults screwed up. He didn't finish. There's nothing dishonorable in ending as Life Scout. In some ways, this will be an even-more-powerful life lesson the way it is. On the other hand, the lesson he will learn if he's given another x-months to do the project, etc. is that he CAN be excused because of the shortcomings of other people - and that is an error in thinking. Real life doesn't work that way. Sorry but that's the way I see it.

[NealOnWheels]

Ok, Packsaddle, where do you draw the line?

 

Lets say he submitted the plan 2 months before his 18th birthday and the adults keep putting hurdles in place. His 18th birthday comes around and it still is not approved. Would you tell him to just give up on it?

 

Or how about 3 months before his birthday? or 6 months? or one year?

 

As far as I know he had an acceptable project and enough time to complete it. The only reason Eagle92 gives for turning down the project is the minimum 100 hours they wanted to see.

[packsaddle]

Neal, It is evident that someone accepts these added requirements as legitimate. I'm not saying they're correct or fair. I'm saying that it doesn't matter. This IS what it is and fact is, if the boy doesn't finish the requirements by age 18, he's done.

It is clear to me that the adults who are screwing this up so badly are going to need to see the equivalent of dead bodies before they change. Or maybe not even then. But this is the world that the boy lives in. It IS what it is.

 

Here's the thing: the boy is going to sign a contract, agree to do something, pledge to complete a project... someday and there will be people depending on a product the way he agreed.

The boy will encounter these same difficulties in any real-life task and in the future he will not be able to go to those people whose livelihoods depend on him and 'weasel' out of the consequences on their behalf. It doesn't matter that other people lied, betrayed him, or just let him down. His failure is going to be failure and it won't matter what the circumstances are. This is a perfect chance to learn that hard lesson while it doesn't cause real harm in his life.

 

The line is age 18, with completed requirements by that date.

[Eagle92]

Quaz,

 

Fortunately my involvement so far has been talking to the Scouter, counseling the SM, listening to the "discussion" between the two parties at RT, and talking to the former EBOR member. SM and I are good friends and he was on IOLS staff this weekend and that topic came up. Hence my questions about others' expereinces. Serious concerns about the situation.

 

However if needed I will get involved more b/c I know all the parties involved, am friends with both sides, and have been known to help negotiate difficult situations.

 

Pack,

 

To a degree iunderstand where you are coming from. But the problems as I see it is that A) the EBOR are not following the rules by implementing a 100 hour requirement, B) The second project could have been finished prior to turning 18, and C) Council was notified of the situation prior to him turning 18. I know sometimes life throws you curveballs, heck mine has, but somtimes you gotta stand your ground. I do think this is one of them. Especially since this scout has really grown alot since the failrue of the first project.

 

NOW,

 

Again this question arose form a conversation I had with the SM this weekend. He was concerned b/c no one has heard anything more from council about the situation.

 

Also I need to amend something. I just found out that he turned 18 Wednesday of last week. So council has known for about a month. IF it had to go to national, then that could explain the long delay.

[Twocubdad]

Pack make a reasonable point. An honorable retreat is something for the Scout to consider, but is his decision to make -- especially now that he's all grown up and everything.

 

I would put a call in to the National Advancement Team and ask for advice. This is a train wreck. First thing is to figure out if he is appealing or requesting an extension -- maybe both. If it's an appeal, what is he appealing? Having his second proposal rejected? Is that appealable? The book only talks about appeals based on the Scoutmaster or Committee Chair refusing to sign the app (which would lead to a Board of Review under contested circumstances) or a rejection by the Board of Review (which is a different sort of appeal.)

 

Has the project review committee given him a letter explaining why the second proposal was rejected (i.e., have the put the 100 hours thing in writing?)

 

Where is the unit leader in all this? Under the new guidelines, even a failed project may be considered if it is deemed to have satisfied Eagle Requirement 5.

 

My hunch is denying the second proposal on the grounds that it failed to meet minimum man-hour requirements (which is clearly in violation of policy, new or old) will be sufficient reason for an extension. That the kid had a reasonable plan to finish before his birthday is a big argument in his favor.

 

 

 

 

[eisely]

Some districts in our council use committees to review and approve eagle projects. Our district does not do so. I am the sole approval authority, and I have an alternate to whom I can refer people if necessary.

 

Based on what I have read in this thread, it is clear that the district added to the requirements and did so in a way that prevented discussion and completion of the project in time. Their bad. This young man deserves a chance to complete his project if he still wants to do so.

 

I personally set aside Monday evenings for meetings with aspiring eagle candidates; every week unless there is an unavoidable conflict. By setting aside Mondays and declining meetings on other days, I have regained some of my life back. These meetings and approvals normally take fifteen minutes, exactly what the current documents say.

 

When an eagle candidate calls or emails me, one of my first inquiries is "When is your 18th birthday?" I want to know what we are all up against. In at least one case that I can recall, I met with a lad who was about two months away from his 18th birthday on a date other than a Monday to expedite things.

 

I concede that those districts that have committees review projects probably get better projects more consistently than our district. But who needs the extra bureaucracy? If someone wanted me to deal with a separate committee set up for this purpose, I would respectfully decline and turn the responsibility over to someone else.

[fred8033]

eisely: Great job! Sounds just like what our district does. Our guy doesn't do just Mondays, but he does protect his calendar, his life and his marriage.

 

I should mention I've heard a few of those conversations when they are face to face. His first question is also ... when do you turn 18?(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[click23]

E92, Looks like I miss read your OP the first time I read it. Let me see if get this now, he presented his project to the eagle board before he turned 1.5-2 months before he turned 18, but since they meet monthly he lost up to 1 month waiting on them to meet. Once they met, they rejected his project because it did not have 100 hours of work?

 

The first time I missed the point that they rejected his project before it even began.

 

So how did he get them to sign off on the project, or has it not been approved?

 

 

If it has not, I would immediately request a time extension based on G2A section 9.0.4.0:

"3. The circumstance is totally beyond the control of the youth member. Injuries, unanticipated family incidents, or various mistakes or missions by adults, for example, could be legitimate causes. The Boy Scouts of America assumes anyone working on Boy Scout ranks has a Boy Scout Handbook and has read the requirements. Despite this, misinformation from unit leadership is often cited as grounds for extensions. These cases will be considered, but they should be very rare and would point to a need for basic training and assistance."

 

And due to the issues with the eagle board I would request that the scout be able to work with another districts eagle board, or have the council advancement committee convene one.

[qwazse]

pack: It doesn't matter that adults screwed up.

 

Actually, it does. We are not teaching our boys unnecessary beaureucratic nonsense. We are teaching them to serve their community.

 

I don't know this kid from Adam, but E92 says he's a stand-up kid who fulfilled the requirements until someone a month before deadline added a local stipulation. That stipulation should be overturned, and time should be put back on the clock for the boy to fulfill the requirement.

[Lisabob]

I find the fact that the council sat on this for over a month to be troubling. Surely, someone at council should have been aware that an extension request needs to be filed with national rather than with the council, and they should have told the boy, his mother, his unit leader, and/or others who inquired on his behalf.

 

Had council provided adequate response, the boy might have filed the extension request in a timely manner and this would have been a different story.

 

So, if I'm this young man, I would now ask the SM and perhaps E92, to help me contact national to file the extension, with an explanation attached that I had requested help from council well in advance of my 18th bday and they sat on it/didn't respond for over a month (until after 18th bday), rather than helping me figure out the bureaucratic process.

 

On some levels I agree with pack - but I think the role of adult leaders, and especially council staff, should include helping the youth figure out where the bureaucratic hurdles lie, and how to clear them. It isn't entirely reasonable to expect 17 year olds to take on the institutional mess on their own.

 

 

[Eagle92]

Click,

 

Click,

 

He never did the second project because it was not approved. Between the time he was asked to stop working on the first project and EBOR meeting was approx. 3 weeks. In that time he went from wanting to quit to coming up with another project, securing all permissions except the EBOR's and coming up with a timetable over the holidays and over a few weekends before 18th birthday to finish. A week to two weeks was spent with bickering, also the council office was closed for a protion of that time, and the council was notified shortly thereafter.

 

Talking to one of the unit's leaders last nite at Cub Scouts, I was told that theyare waiting to hear back from council as it has been about 2-3 weeks.

 

Lisa,

 

One of the challenges as I see it is that our council is very decentralized. Geographically we are a very large council, it can take 3.5 hours to go from one end of the council to the other (and that is using US Highway and the Interstate which most places are not on). So a lot of responsibilities are on the district volunteers. And sometimes we don't know all the answers.

 

Add to that this occured when we had no DE, although our new guy has headache over this by now I bet, and council was closed for the holidays, I'm willing to cut the council a little, not a lot, of slack.

 

But I am emailing the SM for a SitRep today.

 

As to my personal feeling on the young man. When his project failed and he initially blamed others for it, I was extremely disappointed in him. However within a few hours of some comments he made, he very publically made it know that he was completely responible for the mess and apologized to the comments. IMHO that says a lot. I've been told he also privately apologized as well. His willingness to continue forward is another positive in my book. As for his Scout Skills, I actually tried to recruit him to be an IOLS instructor this past weekend.

 

The only problem I really have with him is that I know once August 2012 comes, he will no longer be with the troop b/c he will be in college. But that is the nature of things. I honestly believe that whatever the outcome of this mess is, he is an example of what a Scout should be.

[John-in-KC]

I'm with Lisa, with one addition. Prepare this young man for an episode of "Life Is Not Fair." The worst scenario really isn't all that bad ... that he ends up a former youth member of Boy Scouting, having aged out.

 

Hopefully, National will not only read and grant the appeal, but have some strong words back to the SE and the Professional managing Advancement. Hope, though, isn't a method.

[Eagle92]

John,

 

In all fairness to the pros, they probably did not know that the folks currently on the EBOR are back. They had been taken off the district's EBOR once before by a DAC with the concurrance of the pros. Problem is we have a new DAC now and there was no DE in place to help him select the EBOR folks. I have a strong suspicion that A) the new DAC used folks he knew were on the EBORs for years and B) he didn't know why the folks were taken off the EBORs.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm...

 

This is why I think Eagle stuff should mostly be done at the unit level with a district rep. Less confusing, less conflict, more likely that the people involved share values and expectations and know the boy.

 

Still, if I were sittin' on a jury in a state where comparative negligence is the norm, then I'd say more than 50% of the fault in this case lies with the scout. His screw up with the original project, his puttin' together a project that seems to be designed to be a "quickie" that didn't pass muster, his leavin' it to when there was some delay for a project approval when he knew the group met only monthly.

 

Generally speakin', the standard for extensions is that they only apply for things that are truly beyond the scout's control. In this case, that doesn't seem to apply. Readin' between the lines, the issue comes down to what the group felt was enough of an effort for the boy to show leadership, and they didn't feel that this was enough.

 

Even if yeh were to say that the board was bein' a bunch of old coots and really was just arbitrarily clingin' to a 100-hours rule, part of planning is leaving time for contingencies like havin' to deal with such things (as packsaddle suggests). At best, the lad may merit a couple weeks' extension. In the past, though, the national office has not been willing to grant extensions in such circumstances, particularly without council endorsement. But yeh never know these days.

 

So I expect this lad's quest is done, and it's best to prepare him for that. I reckon the adults should all take a step back and stop the bickering, and then sit down and decide around the district what they all really want to support as being the expectations. There's no set time amount, so is one hour enough? I agree with the district folks, people generally want and need guidance about size, at least in a ballpark way. When should yeh allow for someone comin' in below the guidance? How much below? Talk through these things as friends, recognizing that any expectation yeh set you'll have lads take a run at testing the lower limits, eh? So no matter what expectations yeh have, you'll occasionally being saying "no" and pissing someone off. Unless yeh don't have any expectations at all, in which case yeh shouldn't be takin' up the lad's time.

 

Once yeh get all the adults back on the same page, then yeh revisit the lad's case in that fresh light. If it seems fair, then yeh let it stand. If not, then the district group endorses the extension request and the boy gets another two weeks to see if he can finish.

 

Beavah

 

[Abel Magwitch]

The kid should win his appeal. He is obviously being held back by some extenuating circumstances the EBOR only meets monthly. As a former district advancement chair, I understood that there are many Scouts who wait till the last minute. I am sure you leaders out there know of a few Scouts who procrastinate. And I knew that there would be times I would be inconvenienced because of this. But we volunteer to serve the boys. Yes, I had to drop what I was doing sometimes for a last minute Scouts. If I was unavailable, I would have another from the district advancement committee handle it.

 

What is a shame is that the EBOR has a history of causing problems and nobody from the district or council leadership has stepped in to resolve the problem. It should be pretty easy to inform the EBOR that they are not following policy and if they are adamant of doing things their way, making up requirements, the committee will be dismissed. So now the question becomes - where is the service this Scout deserves? I have to ask where is the council advancement chair? Where is the council commish? If this EBOR has a history of not following policy, why have these leaders not stepped in? Where are the district chair and the district committee? Were they in favor of how this EBOR was doing things? Why isn't the council doing their part keeping their agreement they made with the sponsoring institution? (You know, it's that agreement that the sponsoring institution makes to the council and the council agrees to serve the sponsoring institution)? This is where the DE is supposed to step in.

 

Now the council is going to find itself in a real pickle as the race card has been played. I suspect that this boys appeal for an extension will now quickly be approved. The race card is a reality today and it is very powerful. But from what I have read, the council by allowing this EBOR to continue its operations due to what I believe is apathy has made their bed and now has to lie in it. IMHO, if only the pros would really be concerned with the youth program itself rather than working on their criticals. Their salaries are added to program on their councils tax returns. Sounds like they arent doing a good job managing their volunteers.

 

I know that some of my words may sound harsh, but I am speaking from my own experiences from my own council. As a former district advancement chair, I worked very hard to make sure that advancement policy was adhered to no more, no less. I had my own situations where a scout requested an extension of time because he decided to start the personal fitness badge a week before his 18th birthday. At the time I was a merit badge counselor for the badge as well as the advancement chair. I told the scout that he would be ineligible for Eagle as he ran out of time. I asked him why he waited so long to start the badge. His response was that he simply procrastinated. The boy appealed and the SE granted the extension. All appeals were approved by him. I also worked hard to make sure that the council followed advancement policy at summer camp by hiring actual 18 year old merit badge counselors. But council refused and continued to have 14 and 15 year olds counseling the merit badges. A scout in my council can earn merit badges by simply talking about it instead of doing the requirements. Hiking for 4 hours gets you the hiking mb. Cooking a single pancake gets you the cooking mb. Discussing motorboating while the boat sits broken all week gets you the mb.

 

The council pros told me that they have every right to break national advancement policies as they made the rules in the council.

 

I wish I could be there in your council Eagle to watch the fun now that the race card has been laid on the table.