Daisy Sprouts...er, Scouts!
Once upon a time, long ago, I had a boss. An editor, actually. The editor raised a daughter, who was at one point in Girl Scouts. One day the daughter came home and mom discovered that her Scouting trip had consisted of going to the beauty parlor. Sensibly shocked and outraged at the latest in a series of silliness like this, mom took the only reasonable course of action, declaring that eight year-olds should be playing in the dirt and poking at bugs and she promptly volunteered to lead the Troop.
My editor has been very much on my mind the past couple of weeks.
At first, it was an innocent post on a local Yahoo Group. One person asked if there was such a things as a homeschooled Girl Scout Troop. The responses were very interesting:
"My experience with the Girl Scout Council (and trying to get involved with Girls Scouting at all) has been pretty terrible. I've been trying to get my daughter into scouts for about 3 years now with no luck. The St. Louis Homeschool Network does have a troop, we found out about that one mid-year and weren't able to join later in the year."
"I went through this in our county, you pretty much have to start your own group or try to get in with another group through one of the schools."
"I was also told that there wouldn't be a troop for my daughter age range before I even gave her age. She's nine now. If they don't have troops for 6, 9 or 11 year olds then what ages are their troops for? It's disapointing because my daughter really wanted to be in GS, but I'm finding it's near impossible even with homeschool groups."
"Last year was the first year we actually had a daisy group and that's only because my friend decided to be the leader and I was co leader.. So Jaia - age 6 would be on the older end of daisy's this coming year- so she could "move up" next year... but right now she's the only 6 year old. So we have some 4 / 5 year olds who are too "young" then some 2nd grade - 7/8 year olds - and then we jump up to the older girls so there's nothing in the middle... I would love to have a more outdoor oriented group to join."
"I'm finding that the Girl Scouts are near impossible to get involved with :( "
"I've found getting ANY information about a troop is HARD. We've gone rounds trying to get one started, and gotten everything from ignored to an elaborate game of phone tag. The person running one Troop implied that because we hadn't met that my daughter couldn't participate. Without knowing the inner workings of GS, I still don't understand why a homeschooled kid HAS to be in their age range, especially if they haven't participated before, I know my daughter wouldn't particularly care if she were with seven and eight year olds, but that option wasn't given to us.
I guess my point is that it just shouldn't be this hard. The GS Council should be more open, there should be expeditors to help people looking for an existing troop or wanting to start new ones. It's almost starting to feel secret society-ish...LOL."
They told us here that membership has dropped drastically, I think all over the nation. It would seem that they would try to be more open to home schoolers. I kind of feel like the top people in the organization don't want free thinkers.
I realize the Troop is only as good as its leader, having done Daisies for a year, I really was not impressed with the materials they gave to us to start our Troop."
I got 21 positive responses.
So I contacted the official Girl Scout Council for our area and they did a search for local groups; the schools will be holding their drives this Fall, but as for specifically homeschooled troops...no dice. "So it sounds like starting a new Troop is the way to go," they said. I went in, got some information, and put it out to the group again. Went back to the Council. They pretty much left it open as to how I wanted to run it, which sent me over the moon, frankly.
A LOT of people bowed out because it's Scouts, and they have philosophical differences with that. (As opposed to Earth Scouts, or Campfire Kids.) A good many have kids with several different ages that they want to be in the SAME group.
I got a few responses...too few for my liking. I put out an open call for Girl Scouts through my mom's group and got one more. The one more referred two friends. As of the end of Thursday I'd gotten eight possible Girl Scouts.
These would be Daisy Scouts, and next year they'd move up to Brownies and then stay there for a couple of years.
At first, it was an innocent post on a local Yahoo Group. One person asked if there was such a things as a homeschooled Girl Scout Troop. The responses were very interesting:
"My experience with the Girl Scout Council (and trying to get involved with Girls Scouting at all) has been pretty terrible. I've been trying to get my daughter into scouts for about 3 years now with no luck. The St. Louis Homeschool Network does have a troop, we found out about that one mid-year and weren't able to join later in the year."
"I went through this in our county, you pretty much have to start your own group or try to get in with another group through one of the schools."
"I was also told that there wouldn't be a troop for my daughter age range before I even gave her age. She's nine now. If they don't have troops for 6, 9 or 11 year olds then what ages are their troops for? It's disapointing because my daughter really wanted to be in GS, but I'm finding it's near impossible even with homeschool groups."
"Last year was the first year we actually had a daisy group and that's only because my friend decided to be the leader and I was co leader.. So Jaia - age 6 would be on the older end of daisy's this coming year- so she could "move up" next year... but right now she's the only 6 year old. So we have some 4 / 5 year olds who are too "young" then some 2nd grade - 7/8 year olds - and then we jump up to the older girls so there's nothing in the middle... I would love to have a more outdoor oriented group to join."
"I'm finding that the Girl Scouts are near impossible to get involved with :( "
"I've found getting ANY information about a troop is HARD. We've gone rounds trying to get one started, and gotten everything from ignored to an elaborate game of phone tag. The person running one Troop implied that because we hadn't met that my daughter couldn't participate. Without knowing the inner workings of GS, I still don't understand why a homeschooled kid HAS to be in their age range, especially if they haven't participated before, I know my daughter wouldn't particularly care if she were with seven and eight year olds, but that option wasn't given to us.
I guess my point is that it just shouldn't be this hard. The GS Council should be more open, there should be expeditors to help people looking for an existing troop or wanting to start new ones. It's almost starting to feel secret society-ish...LOL."
They told us here that membership has dropped drastically, I think all over the nation. It would seem that they would try to be more open to home schoolers. I kind of feel like the top people in the organization don't want free thinkers.
I realize the Troop is only as good as its leader, having done Daisies for a year, I really was not impressed with the materials they gave to us to start our Troop."
So, with my former editor much on my mind, I jumped in...
I'm going to be helping out with my son's Cub Scout Den for this upcoming year. I have a very good HS'ing friend in another state who is leading her girls in Girl Scouts...I'm hoping that I can get information from HER, and if necessary, I'll start a HSGS troop *here* that can piggy- back on my experiences with Cub Scouts. This troop would be all about outdoors, hiking, packing, skiing, camping, bugs, dirt, rock climbing, riding horses, kayaking, conservation, Leave No Trace, being adventurous and confident. Being part of an off-beat, minority religion myself, I would leave spirituality and religion up to the parents...the focus here would pretty much be getting dirty and having fun and making friends...all probably with a trace of cookies.
I'm also envisioning sleep-overs at the science museum, behind-the-scenes experiences at the zoo, and all the other awesome stuff that the magic words "Scouts" opens doors for with our great cultural institutions here.
I got 21 positive responses.
So I contacted the official Girl Scout Council for our area and they did a search for local groups; the schools will be holding their drives this Fall, but as for specifically homeschooled troops...no dice. "So it sounds like starting a new Troop is the way to go," they said. I went in, got some information, and put it out to the group again. Went back to the Council. They pretty much left it open as to how I wanted to run it, which sent me over the moon, frankly.
A LOT of people bowed out because it's Scouts, and they have philosophical differences with that. (As opposed to Earth Scouts, or Campfire Kids.) A good many have kids with several different ages that they want to be in the SAME group.
I got a few responses...too few for my liking. I put out an open call for Girl Scouts through my mom's group and got one more. The one more referred two friends. As of the end of Thursday I'd gotten eight possible Girl Scouts.
These would be Daisy Scouts, and next year they'd move up to Brownies and then stay there for a couple of years.
Assuming we can leap the hurdles of Paperwork and Finances, it looks like I'll be a Girl Scout Leader in a very, very short time.
posted by Kelly at
9:08 PM
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