New York 2014

[YUSO]

What major problem is this rule designed to fix?

NOTE: I'm only here to answer this question, nothing else. No implications.

5 days before the deadline, Harold had to call 27 teams about payments that were yet to be made. There are only 53 teams at states; 51% of teams had not PAID yet for the state tournament 5 days before the deadline. Maybe high schoolers don't understand how ridiculous and disrupting this is to the organization of a tournament of New York's size, and it's certainly no one's fault, as I myself would not have realized only a year ago. Necessary payments and logistics simply cannot be made and done when over half of the money has not been submitted. Every SO organization runs on very limited budgets (so close to breaking even and making losses that it's impossible to describe without a financial statement in hand), so every payment counts and needs to be paid for things to be booked, bought, and planned.

There is a serious urgency to be had when so much money has not been paid, which would also explain Harold's unwillingness to contact multiple coaches from a school; that's not his job, and he almost definitely does not have the time. It's easy for everyone to clamor on why he couldn't just spend "the extra five minutes on email," but again, no one who has not coordinated a gigantic thing like this has any right to be so critical of positions they have not been in themselves.

This is the reason for the deadlines. This is the reason such rules are in place. No one who has not planned a huge tournament and managed finances as such can know exactly how much pigeon needs to be shuffled around for everything to fall in place in time. Organizing NYSSO is no small feat.

Just a perspective to chew on for those students who wonder why directors like Harold make such a big fuss over payment deadlines. There are serious constraints one needs to consider, and again, it's no fault of the students that they're missing the perspective. I hope this makes the situation a bit more clear.

[Gemma W]

Thank you for your response, but I do feel it to be a bit condescending. The fact that we are high schoolers does not prevent us from understanding a position, nor from refuting it. In fact, many of those who have expressed support are NOT in high school, if that makes our argument any more convincing in your eyes. We do understand that a lot of work goes into this competition, and we are very grateful to everyone involved. We also understand the necessity and importance of deadlines. There was never a suggestion that the deadline should be removed altogether – that would clearly have a strong negative impact on the competition. We merely believe that such a harsh punishment is not appropriate, and should be replaced with something like a late fee. We would have been happy to make reparations for our district's mistake, but we were not given that option.

You also mention that it is important all checks be handed in on time so that things can be paid for. This is a reasonable argument, but does not seem to actually be the case. One option, in the case that the school district was unable to properly cut the check, was for the coach to send in a personal check, which would be held until the end of the competition. Clearly, these checks were not being used to pay for things beforehand regardless. Therefore, I do not feel that it is quite as problematic as you make it out to be. However, I do of course understand that if every team did this, there would be problems. I am not in any way suggesting that the deadline be removed, rather that it be enforced in a way more suited to Science Olympiad's mission. A late fee would, I'm sure, be ample incentive to get the check in on time. And yes, there were many teams who needed to be contacted in order to make the deadline. However, this does not make us any more at fault. I am certain that changing this rule for the better would not have any negative impact whatsoever on the competition, nor even make the directors' lives much harder.

Please try to see this from our perspective, just as we are attempting to see it from yours.

[Flavorflav]

I would also point out that the fact that over half the teams had not submitted the check five days before the deadline indicates that the deadline may have been unrealistic, especially for the minority of regions running on Feb. 8th. My own district's check was cut a full week after the deadline, and the request was submitted the day after regionals.

It occurs to me that the fault in situations like this, if any, lies with the district, not with the students. An appropriate punishment should therefore be levied against the former, not the latter. Perhaps in future the deadline could be enforced first with a late fee, with DQ to follow only after a second, subsequent deadline has been missed.

[winneratlife]

What major problem is this rule designed to fix?

NOTE: I'm only here to answer this question, nothing else. No implications.

5 days before the deadline, Harold had to call 27 teams about payments that were yet to be made. There are only 53 teams at states; 51% of teams had not PAID yet for the state tournament 5 days before the deadline. Maybe high schoolers don't understand how ridiculous and disrupting this is to the organization of a tournament of New York's size, and it's certainly no one's fault, as I myself would not have realized only a year ago. Necessary payments and logistics simply cannot be made and done when over half of the money has not been submitted. Every SO organization runs on very limited budgets (so close to breaking even and making losses that it's impossible to describe without a financial statement in hand), so every payment counts and needs to be paid for things to be booked, bought, and planned.

There is a serious urgency to be had when so much money has not been paid, which would also explain Harold's unwillingness to contact multiple coaches from a school; that's not his job, and he almost definitely does not have the time. It's easy for everyone to clamor on why he couldn't just spend "the extra five minutes on email," but again, no one who has not coordinated a gigantic thing like this has any right to be so critical of positions they have not been in themselves.

This is the reason for the deadlines. This is the reason such rules are in place. No one who has not planned a huge tournament and managed finances as such can know exactly how much butterfly needs to be shuffled around for everything to fall in place in time. Organizing NYSSO is no small feat.

Just a perspective to chew on for those students who wonder why directors like Harold make such a big fuss over payment deadlines. There are serious constraints one needs to consider, and again, it's no fault of the students that they're missing the perspective. I hope this makes the situation a bit more clear.

No. There is no urgency. What you're doing is complaining about 27 teams which in total didn't pay about 4000 dollars when according to NYSSO's Form 990 forms, your balance sheet showed over 95k in liquidity reserves and 70k in savings assets. Your financial statement tells me that last year NYSSO raked in about 240k in revenue (over 160k in grants alone) and spent about 144k, meaning you turned a 40% net and have literally 100k in wiggle room to accomodate the fact that teams might pay late. You can argue about the idealistic standpoint of deadlines and things, but do not give me that pigeon about how you absolutely needed the cash to run the tournament.

[gneissisnice]

What major problem is this rule designed to fix?

NOTE: I'm only here to answer this question, nothing else. No implications.

5 days before the deadline, Harold had to call 27 teams about payments that were yet to be made. There are only 53 teams at states; 51% of teams had not PAID yet for the state tournament 5 days before the deadline. Maybe high schoolers don't understand how ridiculous and disrupting this is to the organization of a tournament of New York's size, and it's certainly no one's fault, as I myself would not have realized only a year ago. Necessary payments and logistics simply cannot be made and done when over half of the money has not been submitted. Every SO organization runs on very limited budgets (so close to breaking even and making losses that it's impossible to describe without a financial statement in hand), so every payment counts and needs to be paid for things to be booked, bought, and planned.

There is a serious urgency to be had when so much money has not been paid, which would also explain Harold's unwillingness to contact multiple coaches from a school; that's not his job, and he almost definitely does not have the time. It's easy for everyone to clamor on why he couldn't just spend "the extra five minutes on email," but again, no one who has not coordinated a gigantic thing like this has any right to be so critical of positions they have not been in themselves.

This is the reason for the deadlines. This is the reason such rules are in place. No one who has not planned a huge tournament and managed finances as such can know exactly how much butterfly needs to be shuffled around for everything to fall in place in time. Organizing NYSSO is no small feat.

Just a perspective to chew on for those students who wonder why directors like Harold make such a big fuss over payment deadlines. There are serious constraints one needs to consider, and again, it's no fault of the students that they're missing the perspective. I hope this makes the situation a bit more clear.

No. There is no urgency. What you're doing is complaining about 27 teams which in total didn't pay about 4000 dollars when according to NYSSO's Form 990 forms, your balance sheet showed over 95k in liquidity reserves and 70k in savings assets. Your financial statement tells me that last year NYSSO raked in about 240k in revenue (over 160k in grants alone) and spent about 144k, meaning you turned a 40% net and have literally 100k in wiggle room to accomodate the fact that teams might pay late. You can argue about the idealistic standpoint of deadlines and things, but do not give me that butterfly about how you absolutely needed the cash to run the tournament.

In defense of YUSO, he ran the Yale University Science Olympiad invitational (hence his name), which would of course have very different funding. For an invitational tournament, a very significant portion of funding would come from the competing teams since he didn't have the luxury of getting funding from the National Science Olympiad. So he's basing his argument off of his experience, where student funding really was significant and could make or break the tournament. This doesn't really apply to the NY State tournament for the reasons that you've outlined, of course. But YUSO's experience was different and so it wasn't unreasonable for him to assume that the NY State tournament ran in a similar way.

[PastorisFilius]

Good luck to all the teams competing today in Long Island

[gneissisnice]

Yeah, that's enough about Ward Melville from me here, there are 50 other teams competing.

Good luck to everyone at States!

[quizbowl]

For those who aren't at Kellenberg, the live streaming starts in about fifteen minutes. http://new.livestream.com/wkmhs/events/2842324

[caseyotis]

For those who aren't at Kellenberg, the live streaming starts in about fifteen minutes. http://new.livestream.com/wkmhs/events/2842324

Ooh, thank you!

Do you know if they'll have this at the Div. B regional? Or does anyone else?

[caseyotis]

Okay, to all that watched the podcast;

What the pigeon did that woman say right near the end? After he announced FM as the winner (in the world's worst monotone), she leaned in and said "it's nice to have a team that's not" and then something near-unintelligible. I honestly think she said "...that's not saying nasty things" but I don't know. Did anyone else hear?

All in all, the awards ceremony was tense and Mr. Miller did a horrible job keeping the mood. And for a moment he seemed drunk. But it's stopped streaming now for some reason, before FM could come up and get their trophy and plaque. I'm confused.