After accepting a scout’s request to be his merit badge counselor for a particular badge, I assigned myself as his counselor in Scoutbook. Later, I discovered two other scoutmasters approved some of the requirements. Why is SB allowing this to happen?
That is how SB works - as not all MBCs use Scoutbook leaders have to be able to approve.
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@MattPatton FYI, the unit leaders should only be marking those items approved if they have a blue card or some communication from the MBC indicating they are approved. If you are certain the Scout is only working with you and you did not approve, then the unit leaders are overstepping.
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Thank you, Donovan. This is true even though I have a Scoutbook account and assigned myself as his counselor? That would seem to be an oversight in Scoutbook design. It should be obvious that I do use SB.
Related question. Or maybe : our district Activities chair, who is also spouse to our council scout executive, told me that SB rejects any merit badge marked completed by someone who is not a registered MB counselor. Is that accurate?
That is absolutely wrong and uninformed statement by the individual - for the reason I mentioned before - Summer camp is a fine example
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I would add the caveat that the unit scouters might have marked those individual requirements Leader Approved based on a partial blue card (or summer camp report, or…) that occurred prior to the “current” counselor’s involvement (even if marked as such after the counselor attached themselves), and could very well have been operating in good faith when it was done.
As the MBC, I would probably ask the scout if they know why those are marked Leader Approved (e.g.completed at summer camp, etc). If they have relevant paperwork (or the unit leader does), it’s likely worth chasing that down. I tend to find that there are reasonable explanations for most cases, and for those where it’s not the case, I reach out to the unit leadership to get things squared-away.
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Every registered MBC is in scoutbook. So, you can assign a scout to any of them regardless of whether they use scoutbook. But how do you define “use scoutbook”? And what happens if they stop using it? The logic could get pretty complex. I don’t see it being worth the effort.
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