|
|
|
Rights and Responsibilities of Contest Hosts
- Approval: All organizations wishing to host a contest must submit a request at http://mathleague.org/hostform.php and designate a preferred date to host the contest as well as a Contest Director who will serve as the agent of the organization. By requesting to host a contest, the organization and the Contest Director agree to indemnify mathleague.org from any liability arising from their failure to follow the rules as posted on this website. Contest Directors are asked on the hosting form to indicate whether the contest is independent, MCTM-sponsored, Mathleague Indonesia-sponsored, or Mathleague Southern Africa-sponsored. As a prospective Contest Director, you will know if you are eligible to be MCTM-sponsored, Mathleague Indonesia-sponsored, or Mathleague Southern Africa-sponsored; if not, you should register to hold an independent contest. We also offer a corporate contest option, where mathleague.org takes primary responsibility for the contest and handles finances directly, as opposed to the model where independent contests pay a licensing fee to use the tests and collect their own entry fees at the contests. Contest Directors interested in finding out more about hosting a corporate contest should contact us for more details. Contest Directors who do not know the registration code should contact us before signing up to host a contest.
- Payment: Upon approval of an independent contest by mathleague.org, the Contest Director must send mathleague.org a down payment of $100. Contest Directors will not be sent the tests for their contest until this fee is paid. At the conclusion of an independent contest, mathleague.org will send the Contest Director an invoice for the balance of the payment due according to the Regional Coordinator Agreement or whatever alternate arrangements have been negotiated. This payment will be due two weeks after receipt, and a 10% per week late fee will accumulate until payment is received.
- Registering Schools: The Contest Director is free to set and collect entry fees for participation in the contest so long as, absent prior mathleague.org approval, every student is charged the same entry fee. For contests that are not corporate contests, mathleague.org agrees to waive all rights to entry fees collected at the contest arising as a result of the use of the tests or the names mathleague.org or Great Plains Math League in association with the contest. Contest Directors may limit the total number of participants or the number of participants per school based on available space, but if this is necessary entries must be honored in the order they are received. The host school may not deny any school or student registration at a mathleague.org contest on the basis of size, location, reputation, or any means other than the order in which the registrations are received, with the exception that contests run by Regional Coordinators may restrict participation to students who attend school in their region. mathleague.org has an online registration interface that we strongly encourage Contest Directors to use; contact us for more details if you wish to use this system.
- Communication with Participating Schools: The Contest Director must convey to all participating schools that they are responsible for reading, understanding, and complying with mathleague.org's policies and procedures. This notice must occur by the start of the contest or one week after the school registers for the contest, whichever is earlier. This notice is automatically sent to schools that register through our online interface.
- Photocopying and Distributing Tests: The Contest Director may make a number of copies of each test equal to no more than twice the number of students participating. All written tests that are provided by mathleague.org must be offered at the contest without alteration and in exactly the format provided (note that the Countdown Round at middle school contests is not a written event; it is an optional event and can be presented in whatever format is appropriate so long as the Countdown Round is not supplemented by problems not provided by mathleague.org for that purpose). No student in attendance may be denied the opportunity to take any of the written tests for any reason other than the student's failure to arrive on time for the start of the test; in particular, this means two written events may not be scheduled at times that overlap, and students may participate in the team events even if they do not have a full team. At the conclusion of the contest the Contest Director may distribute any leftover tests to the participating schools if desired, so long as they are notified that the tests remain the property of mathleague.org and may not be distributed outside their own schools. Under no circumstances may the Contest Director distribute electronic copies of the tests to anyone for any reason.
- Restrictions On When Tests Can Be Released: The tests you will receive have been written for release only on the date you reserve for your contest, and if you need to change your test date for any reason you must contact us to make alternate arrangements. If a contest must be canceled due to inclement weather, mathleague.org will provide tests and allow the organizers to host a contest on a subsequent date agreed upon by the organizers and mathleague.org. If the original tests are used on an unauthorized make-up date, the contest will not be considered an official mathleague.org contest and participants will be ineligible to qualify for the next level based on those tests. Finally, if mathleague.org suspects that contest integrity is being compromised, it reserves the right to place additional restrictions on when contests may be scheduled.
- Quality Control: Contest Directors are encouraged to review the tests before the day of the contest and report any issues to mathleague.org as soon as possible. If there is a problem discovered the day of the contest, the Contest Director should make every attempt to contact mathleague.org for a ruling. If this is not possible the Contest Director should use their best judgment to make a decision, keeping in mind that the appeals process will serve as a safety net to ensure that, if a Contest Director has to make such a ruling, they needn't worry about the decision adversely affecting students' chances to qualify for state.
- Conduct at Contests: All students, volunteers, and contest staff are expected to conduct themselves appropriately at contests. The Contest Director must become familiar with our Content Standards available at http://mathleague.org/conduct.pdf and make sure all students, volunteers, and staff are informed of the Standards as well. The Contest Director is responsible for enforcing the Standards and working with mathleague.org to resolve any issues that arise. Please note in particular that the Standards describe specific procedures that must be followed in the case of suspected cheating or other rule violations, and these may not be intuitive to a Contest Director who is not experienced with the Standards. Some of these rules are in place to protect the rights of students while the suspected rule violations are being investigated, and Contest Directors must make sure to protect these rights by following the Standards closely.
- Reporting Results: The Contest Director must mail or email photocopies or scans of all sprint round answer sheets used at the contest once the contest is over unless item data for each student on each question has already been entered into our online interface. The Contest Director is required to enter data from the contest onto the form provided by mathleague.org and to finalize results from the contest within one week of the contest. Any Contest Director not reporting scores by this method will be assessed an additional $100 processing fee to cover the labor cost of converting their results into standard mathleague.org format. In addition, sites that fail to provide sufficient data may be subject to sanctions as described at the top of this page. If for some reason a site does not have the appropriate technology to use the data entry interface or to make photocopies of the sprint answer sheets, the Contest Director must contact mathleague.org at least a week prior to the contest to work out an alternate arrangement.
Contest Hosts who fail to follow mathleague.org rules pertaining to hosting of contests may be subject to sanctions including loss of the privilege of hosting future contests.
|
|
