All skaters that are full/regular members of BFSC.

Signifying the color of a skate blade, the first letter a skater earns will be a silver chenille "B" (short for BFSC) with a figure skater pin. Those earning additional letters will receive a service bar for each letter earned.

Letters and bars are presented at the BFSC annual meeting and awards banquet each spring to those that have earned a letter in the previous 12 months.

Whereas high school varsity letters for athletic and extracurricular activities typically require the participant to attain a particular level of achievement or perform in a certain number of competitions or performances each year, the BFSC board of directors recognized that not everyone has the same figure skating goals and structured the program to permit many different paths to a letter. Participation in a wide variety of events and activities, development and advancement in skill level, performances, assisting with the development of other skaters, and general volunteer service to the club will all enable a skater to make progress toward earning a letter.

A wide variety of activities have each been assigned a point value ranging from 1 to 20 points. Skaters will earn points and track their progress as they complete activities that are of interest to them. There are no required activities, meaning that no one is required to participate in a certain number of competitions, for example, or reach a certain ISI level in skating (such as Freestyle 4) to earn a letter. For their first letter, skaters must earn 200 points; for subsequent letters, skaters must earn 100 points. The first document linked below outlines the points earned for each activity in more detail.

Skaters interested in working towards a letter use a worksheet to track activities and progress as activities are completed. A parent, coach, or other adult needs to initial each activity to signify that it was completed. Then, when the necessary points (200 or 100) have been earned the skater submits their tracking worksheet to the BFSC President who will review the worksheet for completeness and then hold the worksheet until awards are presented at the next annual meeting and awards banquet. In the meantime, the skater may begin earning and tracking points toward their next letter. A copy of the tracking sheet may be accessed below, but durable worksheets are available in the BFSC drawer in the warming room at Larson Ice Center.

All skaters that are full/regular members of BFSC, and are enrolled in a school or homeschooling program in which an A/B/C/D/F or E/S+/S/N grading system is used.

Based on their grades for the most recent academic semester, students meeting the respective criteria are recognized as a Gold Scholar, Silver Scholar, or Bronze Scholar. One of the nice parts of the program is that the Brookings Ice Skating Association (BISA) has approved a very similar program in which hockey players are also recognized for their achievements in the classroom. A list of all figure skaters and hockey players being recognized is posted at Larson Ice Center following the first and second semesters each year.

A concerted effort has been made to keep the program as simple as possible. With this in mind, there are no GPAs involved, no complicated calculations, and +/- are not considered (an A+, A or A- are all considered to be an "A"). It's as simple as this:

Students receiving results under an A/B/C/D/F system: Gold Scholar: All As Silver Scholar: All As and Bs, with more As than Bs Bronze Scholar: All Bs or higher; a C may be offset by two As (for example, a student receiving A/A/B/B/B/C would qualify since there are two As to offset the C)

Students receiving results under an E/S+/S/N system: Gold Scholar: All Es Silver Scholar: All Es and S+s Bronze Scholar: All Ss or higher; an N may be offset by an S+ (or higher) (for example, a student receiving E/E/S+/S+/S/N would qualify since the N is offset by one of the S+s or Es)

The system is completely self-reported on an honor system. That is, all the student or parent needs to do is send an email to the club indicating which recognition level was achieved for the previous semester - specific grades do not need to be reported, and local schools are not involved in the reporting process. Just remember to send an email by February 1 for first semester results, and by July 1 for second semester results.