Hello-I am so frustrated, sad, and mad all at once about my son's Eagle Scout plight. He has ADHD to the nth degree and has always struggled with deadlines and assignments but he was able to pull off a miracle and complete and turn in everything on time before his 18th birthday for his Eagle Scout. This was in late December. I do not recall the exact board of review date, but he was turned down. He was told that some of the dates on merit badges seemed off, one date did not make sense, as in the wrong date was inadvertently written as the start date and on another card, the pen ran out, so a date was written over the first attempt apparently with a new one of a different color? The scout master or whoever did it explained what happened and also said he must've accidentally written the wrong date on the other card or so I've been told. Bottom line, they were very carefully scrutinizing every little detail because we've been told by several sources someone anonymously called the board and told them they should really check his badges out because they had a hard time believing he could have completed it on time. I apologize for being vague, but his grandpa has been very involved in scouts for 30+ years so this is all second hand information from him and he is the one who filed the appeal and is closely involved. He is old school and sometimes ruffles feathers by pointing out when corners are being cut or protocol isn't being followed by leaders, so I'm wondering if this is more about a grudge against HIM and not my son. Either way, it baffles me that someone would take the effort to try to black ball my son from this 12 year long effort. He hasn't exactly had it easy, being picked on and bullied his whole life for being hyperactive. The process to be granted an appeal seemed to take forever but he finally appeared before the appeal board on April 29th. We were of course anxious-expecting an answer that night. I couldn't eat or sleep-but they told him they would review his responses to any inquiries they had and get back to him promptly or something to that affect. Well, now it's been over a month, still not a word and his grandfather just heard back from a scout official that it would be at the earliest this week, at the latest another month. Is this normal? It's been 6 months since he requested his board of review. It feels like they are dragging their feet, hoping we will just give up. I can't seem to find any exact timelines. Does anyone have any experience with this or advice for us? To our knowledge, we've answered any concerns or questions they had and they already also questioned those who signed off on his badges so what could the hold up be?
Thanks in advance.
Angie
MeritBadge.Net
The Scouting Discussion Network
If the merit badges were awarded and recorded in Scoutnet (the official record maintained by BSA) then they are not subject to review by EBOR. A little deeper than that, if the troop accepted the Merit Badge as complete then that is not subject to review by the board. If the properly registered merit badge councilor has signed off the merit badge as complete then that is not subject to review by the troop accept under exceptional circumstances. In my council, the scout would not get to the EBOR stage without the application being verified by council. That includes checking the merit badges against the official record in scoutnet.