JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Extracurricular leaders in high schools across Florida have reason for optimism as the state Legislature passed SB 538 this week.
It’s a massive bill and heads next to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk. The two biggest points in the bill address raising pay for extracurricular leaders like coaches and tightening transfer rules to prevent athletes from changing schools multiple times.
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Here are some questions and answers about the bill.
The biggest question – does this automatically mean pay raises for all extracurricular leaders, like coaches?
No. Not at all. In fact, it’s anything but automatic.
Anything with a mandate wouldn’t have made it out of the first committee reading. It would have been a nonstarter and likely led to legal challenges from individual districts that are buried under historic deficits.
Balancing the budget remains priority No. 1, and adding money to any education-related initiative would have rightfully focused on raising teacher pay in Florida.
Teacher pay raises are coming again when the next budget is approved. That’s a given. But singling out coaches or even debate or theater teachers for supplemental raises isn’t possible.
According to the National Education Association, Florida ranks 50th in the country in average teacher pay ($54,875), ahead of only Mississippi ($53,704).
Once DeSantis signs the bill into law, the next battle will begin. The Florida Coaches Coalition said it will then begin engaging individual districts on how to usher this in and apply it.
Executive director Andrew Ramjit said he believes change will happen gradually over the next two years.
Will some extracurricular leaders who are teachers get raises if budgets are increased?
Some will, yes.
Certain districts in Florida attach a percentage to a base rate of pay and use that to assign a supplemental value. In Clay County, the base rate of pay is $37,000. A choral director in Clay County has a percentage number of 7.5%, meaning an annual supplement is worth $2,775.
If the base rate of pay increases, then the choral director would also see a corresponding pay increase. In tracking supplements over the years, some districts boosted their base rate to align with an average teacher salary or close to it.
That’s how some of the largest supplement increases over the last decade have come to fruition.
But Clay County has kept its base pay rate for supplements low, moving from $35,000 to $37,000 over the last decade.
Where will the money come from then?
This is the question that’s asked by everyone in education who has spoken about this bill.
In smaller districts, some coaches have already been able to approach their superintendent and receive more than their listed supplement. Those have been far more an exception than the norm, but it has occurred at numerous schools.
The bill will put more extracurricular leaders in a position to approach and engage with leaders of their district.
Lawmakers on both sides of the party aisle are heavily in favor of a free market in coaching and believe that union-negotiated supplements are outdated.
If a coach wins a state championship, he or she will have the opportunity to seek out better pay in district money. They should be paid more than a coach who hasn’t produced similar success.
But there’s no money at the district level
That is a very real problem felt from the Panhandle to the Keys.
It’s going to continue to get worse. There is no one in education or politics who will say differently.
It is as bad as it’s ever been.
Districts just don’t have cash to spend. That’s why allowing booster clubs to contribute to extracurricular leaders is an option that’s in the bill.
Some districts already allow that. The main ones locally (Clay, Duval, St. Johns) currently do not permit that.
Smaller districts locally (Baker, Bradford, Columbia) are several that have allowed that option.
One local coach said that if the law passed and the district still didn’t allow coaches access to booster support, then they would entertain the idea of legal action to force the district’s hand.
When asked about that possibility, Rep. Adam Anderson said that he hopes it wouldn’t come to that, and that having direct conversations with superintendents across the state to inform them about the bill is the first step.
Will this only benefit the elite schools?
Much like sports at the high school and college levels, the heavyweight programs are better-positioned to gain sooner. That’s why select schools tend to benefit from transfers more frequently than others.
Schools with significant booster support and parent/community involvement are set up better to begin than programs with a lack of it.
There is no denying that.
Locally, schools in St. Johns County all have exceptional booster support. On the other end, less-successful programs in Duval County don’t have even a sliver of booster support.
Rep. Shane Abbott said during a meeting in Tallahassee that it is just the nature of anything nowadays, and referenced two high schools in his area that are at extreme ends of the support spectrum. One high school there has a wealthy alumni base and very engaged booster support. The other school has little to none of that.
The feeling in Tallahassee is that one program that is able to offer coaches something extra shouldn’t be penalized because another in the same area can’t offer the same thing.
The transfer fix is desperately needed
The transfer portal was enhanced by the state’s school choice law, and it has disrupted the high school game more than anything in the history of athletics in Florida.
The Florida High School Athletic Association has pleaded for help from the Legislature to help cut down on rampant transferring for purely athletic reasons. There have been so many clear-cut cases of recruiting and transfers that it’s become almost laughable.
The bill takes aim at parents and students who school hop.
A student may not participate in a sport if the student participated in that same sport at another school during that school year, unless the student meets [certain] criteria.
That criterion is largely what it has been in the past.
Things like relocation due to military parents, foster care changes or a court-ordered custody change are qualifiers. The executive director of the governing body of sports, like the FHSAA, would also have the ability to grant permission.
Once a request is made by the student, a decision on that eligibility request must be made within 14 days.
The FHSAA will hammer out more detailed information on the transfer rules, but it at least gives the association the guardrails to build on for what has been an epidemic. Students can also compete at a different school in sports if the school that they attend doesn’t offer that sport.
Should a student attend a school where a sport they want to play isn’t offered, and that student can’t find a private or charter school to attend within their district of residence, only then can they try to play sports in another district.
The bill says in that scenario, they can only take part in extracurricular events “in a school district adjacent to the school district in which the student resides.”