With respect to the Toronto District School Board - the 4th largest public school board in North America:
a) does your local or state school district provide stipends
No. Not for robotics, nor for any other extra-curricular activity.
b) if so what are the parameters, hour worked, stipend paid, state or local funding?
N/A.
As much as I would love for the TDSB to be able to
encourage participation with a sizable stipend, the realist in me knows the business case can't be made. Some information in this thread shows a football coach in a board receiving a $9000+ stipend - but there's a good chance the football programs there generate revenues that easily cover that expense.
For a board like the TDSB, where good experienced teachers are generally paid decently, the purpose of a stipend would be to avoid the loss of good teachers who have already made the commitment to robotics.
Beyond the hours that teachers spend, little expenses inevitably come up throughout the year.
Granted, most teachers will expense direct-robot related costs to the team...
But there are little things: take-out dinners for the family when you are absent, baby-sitters, gas for part pick-up runs, roaming charges when you're at competition out of the country, the list goes on and on...
The dedicated teacher accepts these things are going to happen, and normally just shrugs them off. But when they happen it's nice to be able to know that they're somewhat "covered."
I actually tracked my non-reimbursed robotics "expenses" last year in as a teacher in Quicken, and they were somewhere in the ballpark of around $450 CDN. Of course, your mileage may vary
.