From: stank@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Stan Krieger)
Newsgroups: rec.scouting
Subject: Re: BSA: Eagle in Jeopardy
Keywords: eagle BSA theft
Date: 11 Apr 92 20:27:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Summit NJ

Jeff R. Allen writes:

>There is an boy in our troop that has just recently gotten his Eagle
>scout rank...

>The problem is that he was caught stealing recently by the Sherrif's office
>that he works in in connection with his Explorer Post (A law enforcement/
>search and rescue post)...

>This is the first thing the boy has ever done wrong. It is undeniably
>wrong, and pretty stupid, to steal from the police. The Sherrif wants
>his Eagle scout award taken away. My opinion is that he should keep
>the rank, but that there should be no Court of Honor immediately, possibly
>at all. I feel this way because I think the Eagle Rank is irrevokeable
>once National has awarded it....

>What would you do? Has anyone out there ever dealt with this sort of
>problem? What might the National Office say about this?

If the thefts had been going on prior to his Eagle Board of Review,
then it's clear that the boy lied on his Eagle Application (requirement
2 "Demonstrate that you live by the Scout Oath and Scout Law in
your daily life").  It would be a farce to hold a Court of Honor,
and if I were the Scoutmaster, I wouldn't do it for at least a year.
Hopefully, it will be possible to get some guidance from Irving, TX.
This definitely sounds like something though that the Troop Committee
needs to address and the Committee Chairman to get some guidance on.
It's going to be a hot one to handle.

I wish there were a way to receive guidance, because we had a problem
with an advancement to Life about 2 years ago.   The boy involved had
a previous history of "violence", but it looked like he was finally
getting his act together.  As it was, this was the only Star or Life
Board of Review that ever seriously considered not advancing a
boy, but given his apparent improvement, we gave him the rank.
Well, a few months later, on a camping trek, not only did he use
a knife in a threatening manner more than once, on two occasions,
he actually cut someone.  I then find out, through the grapevine,
that this knifeplay had been going on for a while, and in fact may
have been the reason that a few 6th graders (this boy was a 9th
grader) had quietly dropped out.  Clearly, had any of us known
about this, there never would've been a Life Board of Review.

About all we did was put certain controls in place to make sure that
a boy didn't slip through again; specifically-

    1.	We do a better job of tracking each boy's progress and
	status as a leader, and if it's not up to our standards,
	we slip the 4 month (for Star) or 6 month target (for
	Life and Eagle) date for completion.  We also tell the
	boys what they need to do or demonstrate to get approval
	for advancement.  We have received some static from parents
	who thought their boys had met the seniority/leadership
	requirement, but we will have specific answers as to
	what the boy must still do to meet the requirement, or
	why what he did or didn't do so far, is causing the slip.

    2.  Since part of the problem in this case was heavy parental
	pressure on the Scoutmaster, we have several standing
	Board of Review members (in addition to the Advancement
	Chairman) with whom the Scoutmaster will discuss individual
	boy's status.  If there is a consensus that the boy isn't
	ready, the Scoutmaster can deflect any parental pressure 
	by saying that he's not going to send a boy to the Board
	of Review if he knows that he's going to be rejected.

     3.	If we feel we need more information, or if things
	just don't look right, the Board of Review will give
	a "no-decision at this time", and if it means that
	the actual rank advancement will slip past the date of the
	next Court of Honor, it's just too bad.  We have never had
	to do this though because of the much better level of
	pre-screening now in effect.

-- 
Stan Krieger                     All opinions, advice, or suggestions, even
AT&T UNIX System Laboratories    if related to my employment, are my own.
Summit, NJ
smk@usl.com
Newsgroups: rec.scouting