What is $23.50 worth to you?
Maybe a three-pack of T-shirts or half of one high-top sneaker? A drop-in yoga class? A couple hours at the driving range or two sleeves of tennis balls?
For any one of the teachers coaching at the B.C. basketball championships this week or last, $23.50 is the value of their season.
For Rick Lopez, a teacher and now vice-principal who coaches the Churchill Bulldogs senior boys basketball team, the hundreds of hours he puts in from late summer through this weekend amount to $23.50. But for Jennifer Eng, who coached the senior girls to the first city championship in Churchill history, her season is valued at even less. She’s a school alumnae, but not a teacher. Her season is worth $0.
At least, that’s their value according to a new tax credit introduced by the B.C. Liberals. In its 2015 budget released in February, the government promoted a $500 tax credit for teachers and teaching assistants who volunteer as coaches. That’s a hefty, respectable sum worth a pair of Nikes and then some. It’s also a potential incentive to draw more teachers to extracurricular sports as well as an expression of gratitude for the dedicated lot who run practices, develop skills, draft game plans, arrange uniforms and travel, fundraise, counsel and advise, give teens memories they’ll have forever… all while public school boards are tasked with making drastic cuts.
The Education Coaching Tax Credit is sold as a $500 tax break but it only provides “a tax benefit of up to $25.30 per eligible taxpayer.”
To be eligible, a coach must put in 10 hours over the course of a year. Educators in the private school system who receive salary or a stipend to coach are not eligible. But then, they’re already compensated for work that’s considered voluntary in the public system.
There are many more like Churchill’s Lopez and Eng. These two are prominent because their teams were crowned Vancouver city champions last month. There is no cash bonus for winning, and there are dozens of coaches at all grade levels and competitive ability who continue to show up for each of the three school sport seasons.
According to a B.C. Teachers’ Federation study on work-life balance released in 2010, three in every four male high school teachers work more than 60 hours a week at certain times of the year. For male and female educators, an average 45 per cent per cent of those extra hours are for extracurricular activities, including coaching. Some coaches I talk to say they are not supported or are minimally recognized by administration.
“Teaching has never been more difficult and the expectations around the profession are at an all-time high,” wrote the West Vancouver school district superintendent Chris Kennedy on his blog, the Culture of Yes, earlier this year. “Do parents want their math teachers coaching volleyball for three hours a night or prepping their lessons? Of course, the answer is probably both.”
Kennedy referenced data that showed the majority of high school coaches in his district are not teachers. In Vancouver, the majority of senior boys basketball coaches are not teachers. At one school, a coach was admonished for never attending teachers’ morning meetings. He was such a big part of the school and his players’ lives, his absence was noted. The missing detail: he’s not on staff.
Retired teacher Tom Tagami says there are too many could-be coaches who leave school when the afternoon bell sounds, leaving a gap that’s either filled by a community volunteer or replaced outright by a competitive club. There are too few P.E. specialists entering the work force, he said. Then there are others who do not set a good example.
“Should you have a job in a P.E. department if you’re not going to commit to an extra-curricular program in a school,” Tagami asked me. “There will be people who go through their entire careers [as a P.E. teacher] and never coach a team.”
Their reasons are complex and varied. Undoubtedly $23.50 isn’t an enticement.
If you play sports or if there are sports team at your school, thank the coaches for all they do. Coffee shops sell $25 gift cards.
