Junior Cadet Program

What is your opinion of the Junior Cadet Program? Is it within our CAP missions? Is it beneficial to our program? Is it effective?

What is the Junior Cadet Program?

thp wrote:What is the Junior Cadet Program?

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It all depends. I am strongly against the Middle School program, which has effected our Wing in a quite negative way. The reason is the fact that underage kids (i.e. 10-11) are able to attend Wing events as any CAP cadet could. CAP wasn't designed for 10-11 y/o and it shows.

But if the Junior program is seperated, I would be okay with it.

I agree with Isaac. Young kids should not be cadets for the reasons of knowledge level and maturity. I, though, like Isaac, would be perfectly fine with a seperate program for them.

Yes, if the program was limited to a class on aerospace, I think it would be fine. But when we start calling them "junior cadets" and they get more space in the "Volunteer" than the real cadet program, I start to get worried...

Well, think about it like this, it works pretty good for the Scouts... The reality is that we don't get a lot of new cadets joining after their 1st year of HS, that's why most squadrons target their recruiting at the middle school level. If Cadets join when they are young, they are more likely to stay with the program long term, and for what I know of Scouts, the younger the better. Once a person reaches high school, there are a lot more competing distractions, like boyfriends/girlfriends, sports, cars, parties, not to mention all of the negative distractions like drugs and alcohol etc. If they first join at 7 or 8 like the cubscouts/brownies do, and the school/squadron has a good program that makes it fun and interesting, they are more likely to stay in the program for the long haul, passing their knowledge and experience on to those coming up behind them.

Recruiting Middle School students is differant then the Texas Wing "Middle School Program". I have no problem with recruiting 12 year olds, although sometimes I don't recommend Encampment for them. The problem I have is the programs that compromise the age limit of the CAP Cadet Program, such as the program I mentioned above. That program only requires kids to be in a Middle School. As a result, we have 11, 10 and even 9 year olds participating in things they simply should not be participating in.

As I said though, if it is a seperate program (much like Cub Scouts), then I would be more okay with it.