How to handle too many girls for a Girl Scout troop?

[Anonymous]

First,
Be sure the number is as large as you think it is. Have you picked a meeting time/dates yet? You could have some fall off with that. In that case, you should consider having two troops meet on different days or have one big troop meeting on the same day in two groups--with two sets of leaders.
Be advised that the organization has LOTS of rules (mostly for the protection of the girls and the leaders), These rules can become cumbersome and annoying, but you do need to follow them. You MUST always have at least two adults present, if I remember correctly.

Second,
Sadly, as the girls get older, there is generally a drop in membership. If you split up into more troops, be prepared to consolidate in the future.

My suggestion: break into two or three smaller groups now--I would suggest 12 girls per troop. However, I strongly suggest that you coordinate some activities so that you have activities together. Try to be careful to break into somewhat diverse groups so that you don't have all the "soccer girls" in one troop and all the "nerds" in another. (That tends to happen in some schools.) Girl Scouts should be an inclusive organization. I've known GS troops that never camped and others that only camped. I'd aim for balance.

[Anonymous]

Our high SES school has 2-3 troops PER grade. Each troop has 2 leaders and 8-10 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We are at a Title 1 school that is starting its first Girl Scout troops (Daisies, Brownies). The moms who are organizing the troops are higher SES, but we also want to put out flyers to invite any girl to participate. The problem is that it's looking like we will end up with way too many girls. (Seems like 15 is the maximum size for a troop.)

How do regular (non-Title 1) schools) that have a tradition of Girl Scouts deal with this? If you have too many girls for a single troop, do you start more than one troop at the same school?

Why is Title 1 or SES relavent to your question? Now that you've extended the invitation to everyone, you need to find a way to include everyone (regardless of SES or any other factor you'd like to use to categorize the kids). Since there is more than one mom organizing this effort, you all can divide as evenly as possible and conquer.

[Anonymous]

We are at a Title I ES and have multiple troops. You should limit the size of the group for the above posted reasons - the bonding is huge and managing activities for a larger group gets to be very difficult. If you have multiple parents volunteers, it makes splitting into multiple groups easier. But our coordinator maintains a wait list of sorts, and as soon as we get another parent willing to lead the troop, another troop is created.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We are at a Title 1 school that is starting its first Girl Scout troops (Daisies, Brownies). The moms who are organizing the troops are higher SES, but we also want to put out flyers to invite any girl to participate. The problem is that it's looking like we will end up with way too many girls. (Seems like 15 is the maximum size for a troop.)

How do regular (non-Title 1) schools) that have a tradition of Girl Scouts deal with this? If you have too many girls for a single troop, do you start more than one troop at the same school?

When I was a GS a new troop would be started if the troop was too big.

[Anonymous]

I'm a service unit manager. Many schools have more than one troop per grade. Please contact the troop organizer for your school. If you don't know who that is, contact your service unit manager or membership specialist at council.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First,
Be sure the number is as large as you think it is. Have you picked a meeting time/dates yet? You could have some fall off with that. In that case, you should consider having two troops meet on different days or have one big troop meeting on the same day in two groups--with two sets of leaders.
Be advised that the organization has LOTS of rules (mostly for the protection of the girls and the leaders), These rules can become cumbersome and annoying, but you do need to follow them. You MUST always have at least two adults present, if I remember correctly.

Second,
Sadly, as the girls get older, there is generally a drop in membership. If you split up into more troops, be prepared to consolidate in the future.

My suggestion: break into two or three smaller groups now--I would suggest 12 girls per troop. However, I strongly suggest that you coordinate some activities so that you have activities together. Try to be careful to break into somewhat diverse groups so that you don't have all the "soccer girls" in one troop and all the "nerds" in another. (That tends to happen in some schools.) Girl Scouts should be an inclusive organization. I've known GS troops that never camped and others that only camped. I'd aim for balance.

OP, as a GS leader for years now (Brownies into Senior troop in HS today), I can say this post above is excellent advice!

I want to add, OP, that your question really is best addressed to your Service Unit leaders and school coordinators. Are you familiar with your service unit? Sometimes new leaders aren't given enough information about what their SU can do for them. And be sure you know, and contact, the person at your GS Council who covers your area. If you don't know your SU leaders or your school coordinator, ask at Council for those contacts ASAP.

If you do not have a school coordinator for GS or haven't heard that term before -- it's a person who oversees the formation of (but not the regular running of!) troops based in a particular school. Not all schools have one but it would help if yours does. The school coordinator is not a school staffer but is a GS leader or someone from the service unit. Sometimes school coordinators are the ones who say "We really need to split up this very large number of girls and find one more new leader" etc. But be aware, one good thing about GS is that leaders actually can set the numbers for their troops. I'm not sure where you got the number 15 -- maybe that's what's normal in your school's troops. But a leader can limit the numbers if there is just too little parent help to make a troop work with larger numbers for younger girls. That's when a school coordinator or SU leader should be very active in finding another parent to be a leader of a second troop, so no girl has to be told there's no space.

It's also required to have more than just one adult leader present. Here's why: GS has rules about how many adults are required to be present at meetings and outings. For instance, you must have two unrelated adults present for 12 or fewer Daisies for a regular meeting, and for camping, outings or certain other events, you need two unrelated adults for every SIX daisies and another adult for each additional four girls. There are numbers for each level of GS and of course fewer adults are required as girls get older, but Daisies and Brownies have the highest adult to girl ratio. This is all laid out in GS safety rules and it automatically means you can't really have huge troops unless you have enough adults committed to be present at meetings, camping, outings etc. Not all these adults have to be leaders, but you need people. It is doable -- I know of one troop that claims 27 girls on the rolls though not all attend everything, and there are two co-leaders and a serious expectation that parents will help out in person. Consider setting up a roster of parents who commit to being the helper parent at certain meetings, so the attendance is shared among all the parents.

[Anonymous]

Agree with most of the above. I was a daisy/ brownie leader for several years and 12 girls with 2-3 co-leaders was ideal. It takes some legwork to be a leader, so one leader can manage the money, another can plan activities, etc. I would not exceed 15 at the absolute max, no matter how many leaders, but I'd try for 12. Also, for Daisys, more frequent, shorter regular meetings are better-- an hour, 1.5 hours tops.

[Anonymous]

Your Registrar should be monitoring troop size. I'm surprised the girls were able to register that many under the same troop.

[Anonymous]

Wanted to add, we have a Cadette volunteer come help out at our meeting. The extra set of hands are great and the girls really look up to her.

Something to think about.

[Anonymous]

^^. It's also nice for younger girls if each child has a parent volunteer at meetings once or twice per year. The girl gets to have mom or dad there, a parent gets to see what the troop does, and the leaders get an extra set of hands. Win-win-win. But, we had a SAHM heavy troop-- not sure how this would work with a Title I school.

[Anonymous]

Why is Title 1 or SES relavent to your question? Now that you've extended the invitation to everyone, you need to find a way to include everyone (regardless of SES or any other factor you'd like to use to categorize the kids). Since there is more than one mom organizing this effort, you all can divide as evenly as possible and conquer.

Having been a teacher in a Title I school and, later a GS leader for my own DD, it is quite relevant to her question.

As another PP stated, there are rules about how many adults must be present. From my experience in a Title I school, finding parent volunteers is a very difficult task. Of course, all should be included, but it does affect how you divide up the numbers. It has nothing to do with excluding low SES girls.
There are plenty of affluent parents who cannot find time to volunteer--but, in the case of the low SES, it is sometimes impossible for the parents to volunteer. Siblings are not welcome at many events.
Another factor I had forgotten, was the transportation after the meeting. Is the leader prepared to take home girls who do not have transportation? This is a factor with any SES. I had girls in my troop who were quite well off, yet the parents could not manage to arrange for transportation home.

[Anonymous]

OP, I strongly recommend creating troops based on grade level, i.e. 1st grade Daisies, 2nd Grade Brownies, and 3rd Grade Brownies. Each troop should be about 12 girls. Each troop needs 2 adult volunteers who have taken Basic Leadership training.

Personally I do NOT recommend Kindergarten Daisies. If you do do Kindergarten Daisies, just meet once a month and don't do any field trips -- that's my advice.

So -- 6 adult leaders and three troops would be my suggestion.

We had 18 Daisies in our troop and it was an unmitigated disaster, BTW.

[Anonymous]

GS rules say 2 adults for every 6 girls at the Daisy level. No one adult can very be alone with the kids, every. I am a daisy leader and we had 13 this fall (always had an extra parent come in when at full group). When we had the full 13 it was nutty, and these are good kids. One of our girls moved at xmas, which is the only reason we agreed to the 13. I am looking forward to this spring at 12 max. I can not imagine having 15.

[Anonymous]

A large troop can be done if you have a ton of registered volunteers. At our school, our troop leader has had 60 girls, split between Daisies, Brownies and Juniors. It is a lot of work but she has parents that run the meetings, a parent that handles the books/records, one just for cookies, 2 or so for first aide and camping, one for snacks, etc.. Meetings are done on Fridays after school at school in different classrooms for each group and she roams the hall between them plus has time for hugs and kisses for each girl. Our troop sells the most cookies. As long as it is age appropriate, she opens up every field trip to all but maybe half participant. Everyone goes camping and parents have to participate. So it can be done. In fact, last year, she took on a Cadette troop at the middle school and it's still worked. There is chaos, she has moments that she is flustered and late at getting info out but with parent support it works.