Feb 08 2008
Coaching/Sponsor Dilemma
Over the past year I have kept track of my hours as a Science Olympiad coach as required by District 86. Science Olympiad is an academic team that practices and competes over an 8 month period. I was quite happy with my job and with the students that I get to work with throughout the season. I say “was” because I can’t begin to tell you how demoralizing keeping track of my time has been. Not because it took time away from my coaching. Not because the board doesn’t have the right to know. It’s been demoralizing because I now feel I am unappreciated by our district. This is a team that has qualified and competed at State for 8 years in a row. This is a team with over 30 students competing. This is a team that simply by placing first at state gets you a scholarship to the University of Illinois.
Having coaches and sponsors keep track of hours opens a whole new can of worms given that we are not hourly wage earners. I don’t agree with this process, but I did as I was told. As I said, I was happy with my pay, but now I realize how underpaid I am. Here’s how I look at it. When a maintenance person without any advanced education (and perhaps without even a high school diploma) comes in after a meet and cleans up, he makes more per hour than I do working with my team. Yes, I realize this is overtime for him, but at my last calculation, coaching is overtime for me. It occurs after I have put in my 40+ hour week. I respect our custodial and maintenance staff, and I am not trying to minimize the work they do. But think about the message this sends to our students. “Cleaning up after you is worth more to this school than the coach with a college degree who works directly with you, who spends endless hours to improve your overall academic performance, and who writes your letters of recommendations.”
District 86 is suppose to be committed to education and value having a good education, but anyone thinking about this realizes it’s not where they want to put their money. I grew up in a community downstate where the people who worked the assembly lines or swept the floors at Caterpillar earned a lot more money than my teachers. I saw directly how this affected my classmates’ educational decisions, and I am appalled that we are now gathering data to show this is still true.
As I was coming to terms with my low hourly wage, I found out that I am required to put in more unpaid hours for 8th grade parent night. A year ago, if I had been asked to come on 8th grade night to promote Science Olympiad, I would have shown up with an entourage of students from my team. Doing whatever it takes for your team (or club or class) has always been what District 86 teachers are all about. I have never met such a dedicated group of professionals. I have also seen the value of that night with my own children going to Downers Grove South. While I am in favor of such a night, I’m disappointed that I wasn’t asked to do this and that my presence is mandated. There is a huge divide between having my presence requested relative to having it commanded. By forcing me to work more “overtime”, my hourly wages will decrease. To decrease my hourly wages by personal choice would have been one thing, but to have it done to me is demoralizing.
If Hamlet had worked for District 86, his soliloquy may have been:
To be or not to be a coach, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, resign.
