Stipends for FRC coaches

[Cwatson]

Hello. I'm a returning FRC coach and am curious if and how much a Coach's stipend is considered reasonable for a head coach?? Our school currently does not allocate a coach's stipend since FRC is not a VA High School League (VHSL) "sport" I was told "We're just a club"
After sharing how much time (around 500 hours!!) I spent last year volunteer coaching they are now open to talking about a stipend this year. I would appreciate feedback from anyone and everyone to share with my administration
Thanks!!!

[SenorZ]

My assistant principal just told me the other week, "If we don't find a way to compensate you, I can see you getting burnt out in a year or two."

I laughed at the "year or two" part.

We have a similar problem in California. Not a sport, no coach $.
However, as an academic club, we can allocate some of our fundraiser money to go to me as a stipend.

[IKE]

For the last couple of years, the State of Michigan has helped support teams at public schools via grant money and stipened for a "coach":
http://www.firstinmichigan.org/Docum...IRSTgrants.pdf

The stipend is $1,500 for 1 adult per team, for public schools. I believe this matches many other "coach" stipends. While it only works out to $3/hr for a coach putting 500 hours in, it sure beats nothing.

I am not sure if we will continue to see these funds in the future, but they have been very beneficial.

[IKE]

I had an idea a few years ago that I have been trying to get support for, but I wouldn't even know who to pitch the proposal. The concept would be that approved mentors would be able to get a tax rebate relative to hrs. spent on mentoring in approved programs. I think a cap on hours and some sort of "record" would have to be established, but the basic parameters would be something like:

Mentors of approve program may deduct up to 200 hrs x minimum wage from itemize tax returns.

So, if you spent 250 hrs. on FIRST, you would reach the cap of 200 hrs. and be able to deduct 7.25 x 200 hrs or $1450 from your taxable income.

If your upper earnings are around the 30% bracket, you would thus get back: $1450 x 0.3 = $435.

I think one could argue for a larger amount of hours, but I suspect if you go much larger than say 400 hrs, the value gets large enough that IRS would want significant sign-off vs. just some sort of receipt from team lead agreeing to the 200 hours.

Another concept I had for this match would be instead of the dollars going back to the person, it would go to the charitable organization. This would cause organizations to value having 2 people put in 200 hours vs. 1 person putting in 500 hrs. As the organization would see a higher return.

I could see this being abused, which is why I would initially limit it to organizations that are doing mentoring efforts.

To give a rough order of magnitude value:
FRC has 3,000 teams. Let's assume 2 mentors putting in 200 hrs/team on average. This would be 600,000 hrs. If FIRST was given $7.25 for each of those hours, we would be talking about $4.35 Million dollars of revenue. Even if USG prorated it relative to tax bracket with the average deduction matching someone in the 20% bracket, FIRST would still stand to see about $1 Million dollars of revenue.

Now, in FIRSTs annual report, it sites 10,000,000 hours of mentor/volunteer. If rated at $7.25/hr that would be $72.5M or 1.5X FIRST's current revenue (as of 2014 report). If only prorated via tax at an assumed 20% average bracket, it would be $14.5M

This could either lead to a 25% reduction in registration fees, or a lot of funds to help with grants.

If you read this, and think you might be able to help me flesh out this idea, please give me a PM. I really feel like there is a proposal here that could incredibly impact to many organizations (not just FIRST) like Big Brothers Big sisters, Scouts, 4-H....

Or you could keep your $400 and get something nice for your neglected family....

[weberr]

500 hours? I wish I could only put in that amount. In 2015 (Jan to Dec) I topped 1500 hours; From January 1st to May 1st this year I hit 800 hours. There is no way to adequately compensate the coaches fairly for their time spent; only pay their way so that they don't have to dig deeper in their pockets to take care of hotels, travel, and expenses on the road. I had to buy a new care this year just so that I could travel with the team since I had no time to fix my old one (Diesel engine needs injectors).

But I am hooked on FRC!

[GeeTwo]

Reference this thread for our info.

St. Tammany parish (county) high schools as of last year have a $3k stipend per school for the FRC coach(es). This was the result of a drive from several high schools, spearheaded by Wendy Holladay and 1912 Combustion.

[sanddrag]

After realizing that I had been putting in 600-700 hours per year outside of the school day on FRC I decided to take a different approach: Put FRC inside the school day. We'll be meeting Monday-Friday for anywhere between 50 and 90 minutes per day, all school year starting on Monday.

Now, I am still pursuing a stipend because there is still plenty to be done on weekends and odd hours for competitions and whatnot. FRC not being a sport is a poor reason for not getting a stipend. There should be equal pay for equal work.

[JB987]

We succeeded in convincing our district in Vegas a few years ago to provide one $1500 coaches stipend per high school robotics team. Split between 5 advisors on the High Rollers team. It's a start...

[swootton]

We are a 5th year going into 6th year team. For the first 2 1/2 years we had one teacher as a mentor who the school paid a stipend out of the robotics funds. The school does not contribute monetarily to the team so this money came directly out of the funds raised through grants and fundraising. Starting in the 4th year the stipend money was directed to the two lead mentors including myself. The stipends are right around $2000 each for the lead mentors.

The team has made a policy of not charging trip related expenses to either lead mentor and to our transportation mentor that tows the trailer to each event as they are all required to attend each event. We recently revised this to include any mentor that is required to attend an event as our drive coach is a former driver and now a mentor. Any other mentor that chooses to travel with the team can gat a discounted seat on the bus and rooms at the same cost as the team.

Also any mentor that has travel related expenses can submit a request for reimbursement. The amount is based upon mileage at the rate used by the IRS for that year for mileage deductions which is currently $0.54 per mile plus tolls.

With the amount of time put in by our mentors they should not have to spend their own money to attend any event that they are "required" to attend.

[snoman]

We all know we are not in it for the money. But we all are giving up LOTS of time for FRC. In Minnesota FRC is MSHL activity as the lead coach of 2 teams I get $1600 and a assistant gets $900ish. Although I do know other districts get a lot more and other coaches in my district get more than me. All in all I get less than $3per hr.for my year of FRC.

[cpapplefamily]

I recently took leadership in our all city team. We are 100% self contained club. We meet at a local high school but received little to no support. Our students are still required to pay the school a minimal $20 activities fee to their respective school. The past 6 years no mentor or coach received a stipend. There was a teacher in the start mentoring the team. After his request being turned down for a stipend he quit memtoring.

The district has identified VEX as the focus program. I believe the VEX coaches do receive a stipend. I helped a rookie VEX team my daughter was on last year in middle school. The coach and team was lost till I stepped in. The coach in passing mentioned next year we should see if I could earn a stipend. I'm not hear for the money it's true. Put $1500 + in the fund marked for coaching. I would likely spend that directly back to the team.

We are a Minnesota teem and yes a MSHL recognized teem. Our Area school district has chosen not to directly support the program.

[gblake]

IMO, a reasonable stipend for inspiring students to embrace the STEM side of their potential would be to pay you your normal hourly rate, plus travel expenses & overtime. I would push for it.

A nice token reward for volunteering would be along the lines of what other folks have described already.

However, when stipends become reasonable, expect the people paying them to ask if FRC (a huge time suck) is the best way to achieve the result. At that point, after the desired result is agreed and well-defined, an interesting conversation will (should) occur.

Blake

[adciv]

When we were part of the school system, our lead mentor got the same pay has a coach ($1k). Mind you, we're in a somewhat rural area. It's a pittance compared to the time put in but it's the same stipend as the Football Coach so its fair.

[tjwolter]

I was a first year mentor last year, on a rookie team. But as to volunteer work I had been at that point already in year 15 of a DIY robotics program in the middle school after school program. So I have a sense of perspective here that makes be brave enough to say something just a bit controversial.

With tons of respect for the teaching profession, and much affection for my many teacher friends, where we are there is a significant aversion towards teachers being involved in something like FIRST unless there is a stipend involved. This goes beyond the fact that many of them have so much else going on that it would hardly be practical for them to take on a lead role. We have a very politicized environment at this time where teachers are not encouraged to go the extra mile with this sort of thing UNLESS they get paid.

Like one of the other commenters above we are an off school team. We build in a Maker's Space that one of our mentors has created. My other lead mentor is a software engineer with a very understanding boss. (meaning his wife, but his employer is pretty much on board also!). I'm an ER doctor at a stage in my career where I have the luxury of doing what I want, when I want to do it.

Our district has been supportive financially. Mentors don't pay travel expenses. But we are not offered a stipend and if we were we would all toss it back into the kitty anyway.

Not everyone has our situation. And I understand that there may be a (one time) state matching grant this year that can be used for stipends if that were a desired use.

T Wolter