A coach is one of the most important hires a district can make !!

[marshall]

Originally Posted by logank013

I couldn't ever imagine a school district putting 6 digits into hiring a coach for a STEM program like robotics.

Why is that hard to imagine? Engineers make those kind of salaries now. Isn't teaching others how to be engineers just as if not more important?

Originally Posted by logank013

However, as some of you have mentioned, schools are hiring "robotics coaches". I assume that these coaches are also full time teachers who teach a robotics class or two at the end of the school day to let FIRST students work on robots. I'm also assuming that they are hired for the same amount of money or slightly more than a "regular teacher". Can I get some examples of what I said or what contradict what I said? Thank you.

It's less money than a regular teacher. Think on the order of $500 to $10,000 stipends to coach robotics teams from what I have seen. I'm not an expert on this but it's a conversation I've had with quite a few people. The amount depends entirely on the local governing bodies and how they are paying for it. I have not heard of any robotics coaches being paid more than $10,000 at this point. Again, I'm not an expert. I'd love to see FIRST conduct some polling on this subject.

Also, I want to point out that I'm not advocating that I should be paid more... I'm on the low end of the scale mentioned above because our school treats me as an employee for liability purposes. I do this for fun and because FRC had a massive impact on me as a student. No amount of money would entice me to do more. What I'm really saying is what Ed is saying above... if we elevate robotics coaches to paid celebrities in the same light as the Football coaches from the articles then we can start to see cultural change.