JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The battle to improve pay for high school coaches in Florida got a jolt this week as the Senate released a bill that would give school districts the power to pay more than what’s currently spelled out in union-negotiated contracts for their coaches.
A bill drafted by Republican Sen. Corey Simon lays out changes for both the Florida High School Athletic Association to get help with recruiting and also opens the door for a boost in coaching salaries.
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The coaching salary issue is one that News4JAX has tracked for a decade. The Florida Coaches Coalition picked up that fight four years ago and has championed better pay for all athletic coaches in the state. Its executive director, Andrew Ramjit, spoke in front of the Senate Education Committee earlier this month, and was optimistic that Simon’s bill would help continue the momentum for better pay.
The bill is a start. For the first time, it puts the option in black and white for school districts to go above and beyond in paying those coaches.
Currently, coach salaries are paid as supplements in 64 of the state’s 67 counties. Bay, Okaloosa and Walton pay their head football coaches on an administrative level. Those counties follow a supplement schedule that is spelled out in collective bargaining agreements hammered out by unions.
Simon’s bill doesn’t offer specifics on how those districts could pay coaches (it will change drastically from county to county) but gives them an option to untangle that from the low pay that’s spelled out during union negotiations. Coaches have complained for years that by not having a voice during collective bargaining, hurts them financially.
“The district school board may, at its sole discretion, determine and approve the compensation of any person employed as an athletic coach, assistant coach, or athletic program supervisor, regardless of whether such individual is classified as instructional personnel,” the bill reads.
“Compensation may exceed any salary schedule, supplement, or stipend otherwise prescribed and may be paid in any form or amount deemed appropriate by the district school board, including, but not limited to, salaries, stipends, bonuses, performance-based incentives, and hourly or per assignment pay. Such compensation is considered part of the coach’s total compensation.”
How coaching salaries work
Many head coaches in football are full-time, 10-month employees of the school districts as teachers. That’s where their main paycheck comes from. If they elect to coach, they earn a supplement in addition to their teaching salary.
As a head football coach, those range from a low of $3,038 in Broward County to a high of $8,317 in Broward County. Those totals are for an entire year of work and are supposed to cover the 11-week regular season and the 20 days of spring football.
Since most teaching contracts are only 10 months and coaches work a good portion of the two summer months, the bulk of that is unpaid. Some counties do put head football coaches and athletic directors on 11-month contracts, but those are more of an exception than the norm.
There are school districts that already do pay coaches more than what is listed in salary schedules, but those are not common. An option for school districts to consider for funding sources could include booster club pay, which is not currently allowed in every school district.
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Movement on transfer issue
The bill also includes language that would help ease the rate of athletic transfers in Florida. FHSAA executive director Craig Damon spoke at length in front of the Senate education committee earlier this month about the issues of rampant transferring in Florida. He used an example of a football player who competed in the regular season for one school and then transferred to another for the playoffs.
Florida’s controlled open enrollment started in 2016 and it’s been a well-received option for parents and students. Damon spoke highly of that in front of the Senate committee. But it’s also created a transfer portal in athletics, with students hopping from school to school, sometimes multiple times in the same year for solely sports purposes. That’s the issue that the FHSAA needs help to address, and the Senate’s bill aims to fix that.
“A student may not participate in the same sport at two different schools during the same school year, unless granted approval by the applicable governing organization’s executive director,” a portion of the bill read.