If you looked around, there were numerous parents accompanying their kids to watch matches. Regarding this, when I started Quizbowl in 7th grade, my parents stayed with me at the entire first tournament. However, they decided after the first half of the second tournament I attended that these tournaments are routinely very safe and thus have not attended a tournament since. I know numerous other parents who believe the same way. The tournaments are safe to the point where there is no need to require parent supervision when there are so many parents present.Dominator wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:01 amNo, Rohan, I am not mistaken or misinformed. I was personally there, and got my information directly from the TD: you. I changed my plans to stick around with my son's team that whole day because they deserved to have a supervisor with them when their nominal coach, also you, left them alone. Having a single adult sponsor be present in the physical sense only is not enough to ensure the safety of 24-30 MS teams.vrohan wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:51 amEvery high school in SoCal running tournaments has and will continue to have an adult supervisor who is a district employee on site at all times. Usually it is the club advisors who take on this role, they are often sitting in their classrooms, but they are always there and ready to help. I know for a fact that we would never run tournaments without our advisor there, so it seems that you're misinformed about this.Dominator wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:55 pm When my son started playing quizbowl this year, I was horrified to find that there were teams attending an MS tournament, run by HSers no less, with no adult supervision. As a parent, I cannot let my son continue to play on this circuit, at least in its current form.
Many of the kids realize that it is indeed safe to walk alone to get lunch near the Westview area, and their parents realize that as well, which is why they are even allowed to do so in the first place. No parent is stupid enough to let their kid walk with no adults without knowing if the area is safe, so please don't insinuate that either. If you still don't think the area is safe, you are more than welcome to continue staying with your son at every tournament he goes to.Dominator wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:55 pm Do you remember the lunch break at that tournament when students were told directly to walk several blocks down a not-unbusy road to get food? A good number of those teams were unsupervised at that point. Let alone what could have happened during that lunch break, was there anyone at the tournament making sure those kids got back okay? (If you need someone to refresh your memory, no, there was not.)
Regarding this, we had sent out an email that morning saying practice was cancelled to both you and your son. I didn't have a phone when I was in middle school, but I could go to the office and call from there, which I did multiple times, and he could have easily done the same.Dominator wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:55 pm And do you remember at a different time canceling practice the day of with no warning because you had homework to do, and I found out when I came to pick my son up at the normal time only to find out he had been waiting for me outside for OVER AN HOUR because he didn't have a phone to call me? Dude, HE WAS 11.
I am not exaggerating in saying that if I had made such poor decisions with student safety when I was a teacher, I would have rightfully lost my job. If this is what SoCal quizbowl is, it deserves to not exist.
Also, I really hate the idea of having a public argument like this, especially when you have the habit of personally attacking me instead of sticking to the subject of this thread, so I will probably stop after this post.
Thanks for your concern though :)