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Board weighs coach stipend disparities, team sizes and transportation barriers to student participation
Summary
Board members pressed for analysis of costs to raise stipends, parity between sports, and how transportation limits students’ ability to participate in middle- and high-school athletics.
Board members at the Hamilton County work session raised concerns about disparities in coaching supplements, unequal assistant-coach staffing across schools and transportation barriers that limit student participation.
Several board members noted the district’s current practice of paying coaches a percentage-based supplement and pointed to differences across sports: “Basketball coaches get a 15% stipend… baseball, softball and wrestling get a 10%,” said board member Steve (identified in the transcript as speaking on coaching supplements). He urged exploring raising lower stipends to 15 percent to reduce disparity. Board members asked administration for a cost impact analysis of increasing stipends.
Members also highlighted inconsistent numbers of assistant coaches between small and large schools. “Every high school has the same number of assistant coaches in our county,” said board member Slater, who said that a 1A school with about 23 players has the same number of assistants as a school with 90 players. Slater called the disparity a safety issue and suggested basing assistant counts on school classification and roster size.
Board members linked participation shortfalls to transportation. A member noted that East Ridge girls’ varsity basketball has struggled to field teams partly because many students rely on district transportation and cannot stay late for practices. Dr. Robertson said transportation is costly and complex — the district’s current transportation budget is large and may increase — and recommended the board weigh budget constraints in any staffing or transportation changes.
The board asked Evergreen, the firm conducting a compensation study of coaching supplements, to include cost scenarios and possible options such as flat fees versus percentage-based pay. The district also discussed potential options to reallocate resources, reduce assistant numbers at some schools, and explore more after-school programming with transportation supports to boost participation.
No motion or vote was taken; members requested follow-up cost estimates and options for policy changes and alignment with Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) classifications.
