Compensation for school coaches are the intangibles

Dorian Miller guided his Westwood Collegiate boys hockey team to the AAAA provincial championships this year.

Along the way, the math teacher estimates he logged about 400 hours from practices, games, tournaments and all the planning that went into a season that ran from September to early March.

In most other professions, Miller probably would have pocketed a hefty overtime cheque or banked a few weeks of vacation days. Instead, he got one paid day off and an honorarium that worked out to about $1 an hour.

But like other teachers and educational assistants in Manitoba who coach or run extra-curricular activities such as clubs, he does it for love, not money.

“The reason I keep doing it is I really enjoy being with the kids,” said Miller, who’s in his fifth year teaching and coaching at the St. James-Assiniboia School Division high school.

“I’m obviously not doing it for (the compensation) because it’s not really much considering the time. But I’ve been blessed with two awesome administrations where they’ve really appreciated the effort that we put in.

“If they expected it, then it would be more painful.”

Miller runs a rookie camp in spring, a weight-training program in the summer and begins practices in September. He’s able to get a substitute teacher for his class if he needs extra time for hockey responsibilities and can claim mileage and some expenses.

This year, he had an assistant coach who’s learning the ropes about all the paperwork that goes into managing a program.

“It’s been a lot more than I expected,” Miller said of coaching. “In my fifth year I’ve got it to a point where it’s a lot more comfortable, but the first couple years were overbearing, to say the least.”

In 2005, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society polled members about the amount of time they spent during a six-day school cycle supervising students outside of the classroom for extra-curricular activities.

Thirteen per cent didn’t put in any extra time, 13 per cent spent less than one hour and 34 per cent did one to two hours per cycle. Twenty-five per cent spent three to seven hours, five per cent clocked eight to 10 hours, 2.4 per cent did between 11 and 15 hours and 2.3 per cent logged 15 to 40 hours per cycle.
 
School divisions across the province have different types of compensation for teachers who coach or are involved in other extra-curricular activities, from appreciation banquets to covering out-of-pocket expenses to giving paid days off for so many hours spent coaching during the school year.

Individual schools also have extra-curricular budgets that may be used to give teachers honorariums or small gifts such as clothing with the school’s logo on it.

Lockport School teacher Yvonne Inniss, who co-coaches the Grade 7 girls’ basketball team, will receive one extra-curricular leave day for coaching more than 50 hours because of the Lord Selkirk School Division’s policy. She’ll also get a gift from her school’s administrators.

“It’s kind of in lieu, or to give you some appreciation and time back,” said Inniss, who teaches Grade 9 English language arts and social studies. “That’s nice because it’s showing that they appreciate the time we put in, recognizing it’s over and above what we do.

“I think good schools and good administrators recognize that the more things that are going on and the better school culture, just the better it is as an environment for being there and for learning. We have that here for sure.”

Garden City Collegiate physical education teacher Missy Penner, who coaches badminton, will join her fellow Seven Oaks School Division coaches at an appreciation dinner banquet hosted by the division and receive a small gift.

Penner holds three-hour practices, five days a week, during the season that can run up to seven weeks. Administrators recognize the time commitment and she doesn’t have to do some school duties such as hallway monitoring. There’s also no problem getting a sub if she needs time for tournaments or other coaching-related responsibilities.

She doesn’t feel pressure to coach because she’s a phys-ed teacher.

“I think you go into phys-ed with an understanding that it’s part of the job,” Penner said. “Most people go into the job because they love it and you like working with kids. To me, it’s a big part of the job.”

Still, coaching does come with expenses she has to cover herself.

“It costs you money to coach, with the travelling and eating out at tournaments and the fact you’re not at home,” she said. “We’ve had to get babysitters when the kids were younger.”

She and her husband, Phil, have two sons aged 6 and 8. Phil isn’t a teacher, but he coaches Garden City’s varsity boys’ basketball team.

Now that their kids are older, the whole family gets into the act.

“My kids know the inside of every gym,” Penner said with a laugh. “But there’s advantages. It gets them excited about sports and makes them active. They aspire to be like (the older athletes).”

But don’t all those hours affect her job?

“I think it affects it in a positive way,” Penner said. “When you’ve had a chance to work with kids outside of class, I think because of those relationships that are established it actually makes it easier to teach.

“But are you tired? For sure you’re tired. How can you not be? Everyone else might have had a weekend off and you’ve worked all weekend so you come in tired. You kind of get used to it. You become very good with your own time-management skills.”

For Miller, those management skills spill over into his summer vacation.

“I’m a well organized person, I think, but I guess I could develop a few different innovative lessons here and there,” he said. “I try to do it in the summer holidays, though. I go into school every second day and come up with different ideas to my lessons.”

But like Penner, he believes coaching helps his teaching.

“I think with the relationships with the kids, it helps,” he said. “The students see you as a coach and they respect you a little bit more and they hold you in maybe a little more higher status.

“But in terms of being able to maybe come up with a new idea for one lesson that you think is real boring, I don’t have the time during the year, I have to wait till summer to make changes like that. It’s a give and take, I guess.”

Inniss sees coaching as a way to give students a well-rounded education.

“You want to work with them in situations other than the classroom and provide a really good school life and good opportunities for them here,” Inniss said.

“I’ve never really thought of (coaching) as a real job, that it’s an onerous thing. I’ve always loved it. I would do it no matter what.”