How quickly does National Advancement act on appeals?

[James6]

My son had to appeal a negative Eagle Scout rank decision to the national level.  It has now been four months since it was sent (through our Council, as per the Guide to Advancement), and we haven't heard anything.  Our Council doesn't seem to be able to provide any information at all.  Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of situation, to provide insight into how long National Advancement usually takes to address it?

Thanks, James

[RememberSchiff]

@James6 welcome to scouter.com.

[fred8033]

I wish I could provide more detail.  Four months seems long, but I'm not sure.

QUESTION - Did you appeal to national via your council?  Or did you directly appeal to national?  I'm curious about procedures.  I ask as I'm wondering if and when national received the appeal.  Was there a middle man?  Did it really get there?

[InquisitiveScouter]

39 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

I wish I could provide more detail.  Four months seems long, but I'm not sure.

QUESTION - Did you appeal to national via your council?  Or did you directly appeal to national?  I'm curious about procedures.  I ask as I'm wondering if and when national received the appeal.  Was there a middle man?  Did it really get there?

Did the council courtesy copy you (and/or Eagle Candidate) on the forwarding of the appeal?  That is, do you know that National, in fact, received it??

[InquisitiveScouter]

11 hours ago, James6 said:

My son had to appeal a negative Eagle Scout rank decision to the national level.  It has now been four months since it was sent (through our Council, as per the Guide to Advancement), and we haven't heard anything.  Our Council doesn't seem to be able to provide any information at all.  Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of situation, to provide insight into how long National Advancement usually takes to address it?

Thanks, James

James, would you mind sharing a bit of detail as to why your Eagle Candidate's appeal was necessary?

Also, I do not believe National has the agility to anything "quickly" these days, as they may be fully focused on gearing up for the National Meeting at the end of this month.

https://scoutingwire.org/save-the-date-for-scouting-forward-2023-bsa-national-annual-meeting/

[PACAN]

A volunteer panel reviews and make the recommendation.  I’ve seen it take one to twelve months.   Never seen ,, although I guess it has happened,  the scout turned down because it is always the fault of the adults even it there is clear evidence that the scout did not actually do the requirements.

[James6]

Thanks all for quick reply, sorry I've been very slow to respond.  The required process is first to appeal to the Council Advancement Committee, and then (if denied) to appeal to the National level via the Council.   @fred8033, as far as I know it's not possible to directly appeal to national; I don't mean not allowed, but literally there is no place to directly send an appeal.  @InquisitiveScouter, Council did not copy us, but they have confirmed verbally that it was sent fairly promptly.  I can well believe that this delay is normal, but it sure would be nice to have some hint as to how long we should expect to wait.  Thanks, @PACAN, for the information that up to twelve months is possible.

@PACAN, that's quite some cynicism in your last sentence.  Maybe it's justified, I have no way to know.  But it may encourage you to know that in this case the boards of review and appeal affirmed that my son did complete all requirements.

@InquisitiveScouter, I'm not interested in litigating the situation in this forum.  But, I'm willing to satisfy the curious to this extent: My son made some bad choices about 2 years prior to the Eagle application which led to a one-week school suspension.  The boards misconstrued this into a fundamental character failing, their poor judgement exacerbated by about a dozen ways in which they failed to follow the Guide to Advancement.  This description, of course, leaves out many details and is In our opinion.

[Eagle94-A1]

On 5/20/2023 at 9:47 AM, PACAN said:

..  Never seen ,, although I guess it has happened,  the scout turned down because it is always the fault of the adults even it there is clear evidence that the scout did not actually do the requirements.

I can testify to this. We had a young man denied Eagle because it was discovered troop's leadership, which consisted of Grandpa SM, Dad ASM, and Mom CC pencil whipped a bunch of his MBs so he could get Eagle at 13 or so. EBOR did what they were suppose to do and gave him a plan to actually earn Eagle. The family appealed to the council and was denied. Family appealed to  national, and he was awarded Eagle with the statement in rationale "We do not penalize the Scout for the mistakes of the adults" or words to that effect. The entire District Advancement Committee resigned in protest over this stating "National can conduct these EBORs"

I ran into the Scout one time not knowing who he was. I was surprised he was an Eagle, until I was informed of the situation.

[Armymutt]

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I can testify to this. We had a young man denied Eagle because it was discovered troop's leadership, which consisted of Grandpa SM, Dad ASM, and Mom CC pencil whipped a bunch of his MBs so he could get Eagle at 13 or so. EBOR did what they were suppose to do and gave him a plan to actually earn Eagle. The family appealed to the council and was denied. Family appealed to  national, and he was awarded Eagle with the statement in rationale "We do not penalize the Scout for the mistakes of the adults" or words to that effect. The entire District Advancement Committee resigned in protest over this stating "National can conduct these EBORs"

I ran into the Scout one time not knowing who he was. I was surprised he was an Eagle, until I was informed of the situation.

I wonder how often this happens compared to the old days.  Seems that the increasing competition for social media attention and college applications makes parents slough off integrity in an effort to get their kid rank.  I have seen some questionable stuff in Cub Scouts, like people earning 70% of their rank in a weekend.  Even had one claim that a kid earned AOL despite having attended one meeting and a day (not night) of camping.  

[InquisitiveScouter]

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I ran into the Scout one time not knowing who he was. I was surprised he was an Eagle, until I was informed of the situation

I ran into the former Scout one time not knowing who he was.  I was surprised he was awarded an Eagle, until I was informed of the situation.

There... fixed that for you 😜 

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, Armymutt said:

I wonder how often this happens compared to the old days.  Seems that the increasing competition for social media attention and college applications makes parents slough off integrity in an effort to get their kid rank.  I have seen some questionable stuff in Cub Scouts, like people earning 70% of their rank in a weekend.  Even had one claim that a kid earned AOL despite having attended one meeting and a day (not night) of camping.  

This incident was 20+ years ago before all the hype.  More recently I know of one case where mom threatened a lawsuit against BSA if an extension was not given to her son to do a new project after turning 18. Long story short, The kid did NOT follow the directions given to him by the benefitting organization (BO) prior to approval, and did NOT listen to the recommendations of his SM and ASMs, one of whom was a professional contractor. He ended up getting kicked off the BO's property, turning over all unused funds to repair the damage he causes, got Scouts banned from ever doing another service project there, and nearly caused the BO to be shut down and fined until repaires were made. 

 

54 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

I ran into the former Scout one time not knowing who he was.  I was surprised he was awarded an Eagle, until I was informed of the situation.

There... fixed that for you 😜 

Sadly he was still registered and active in the troop when I met him. This was about 6 months after National approval, and he was 15 or 16.

[fred8033]

13 hours ago, James6 said:

... I'm not interested in litigating the situation in this forum.  But, I'm willing to satisfy the curious to this extent: My son made some bad choices about 2 years prior to the Eagle application which led to a one-week school suspension.  The boards misconstrued this into a fundamental character failing, their poor judgement exacerbated by about a dozen ways in which they failed to follow the Guide to Advancement.  This description, of course, leaves out many details and is In our opinion.

I'm sure your son faced enough judgements over those two years between suspension and the Eagle application.  If after the suspension, the troop kept the scout registered, then the suspension should not be used against him.  Key point is keeping the scout registered and participating is tacit agreement that the scout could earn Eagle if he stays active and working the requirements.  It's too late at the EBOR to use the suspension against the scout.  ... It might be very different if the incident was a month before the EBOR.  

[mrjohns2]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

It's too late at the EBOR to use the suspension against the scout.  ... It might be very different if the incident was a month before the EBOR. 

Agreed. He also passed the SM conference. I think the OP was right in doing an appeal. It isn’t like a suspension 2 years prior labels him a felon for life. Sounds like he turned things around and should end awarded eagle for having completed the requirements. Unless there is a huge detail the OP chose not to include, it seems pretty open and close. 

[PACAN]

@james6

not a cynic….direct knowledge of the appeal.

[James6]

@PACAN, I hope I didn't offend you.  As I said, you might well be completely right.  It's just hard to know how much weight to give opinions on forums like this—even among scouters!

By the same token, I encourage everyone not to come to firm conclusions about our case.  Although we think we are in the right (of course!), I intentionally didn't tell enough for an informed opinion.  Because I don't want to go there.  I just thought it was fair turn-about to let y'all know what sort of appeal it is.

I do think that it is unfortunate that the appeal process takes so long, considering the Guide to Advancement's exhortations to be prompt with the EBOR.  I also understand that national advancement may be swamped, and are volunteers; sometimes the unfortunate isn't avoidable.  But, I would think national administration could manage a brief acknowledgement like, "We have received your appeal.  We expect to consider the case in X months."