New salary schedule gives coaches financial incentives to win

At the Big Horn County School District No. 2 monthly school board meeting on June 10, the board approved the salary changes for coaches and sponsors to reflect the extended time required when teams progress in post-season play.

“We’re really trying to make this, in our opinion, as fair as we can and not make it like a carrot dangling in front of them per se to go further, but base it on their weeks of work,” Superintendent Doug Hazen said.

For sports like volleyball, the change will be relatively easy.

For example, the schedule would be taken off of the WHSAA website to determine when the first day of practice begins and also find out when the season would come to an end after the regional tournament, or prolonged another week if the team advances to State, in which case the coaching staff would receive compensation for the extra time needed.

Football stands to be the only sport in which the coaches could potentially make less money than the previous year.

If the team fails to reach the playoffs and only has the minimum 10-week season, they could make less than they would have previously.

“Before that, they were kind of in the middle as far as salary goes whether they made the playoffs or not because they were guaranteed this amount,” Hazen said.

“Now in this scenario, if they don’t make the post-season, they will get a little bit less. However, if they make it and go far, they would make quite a bit more.”

Activities such as cheerleading, speech and debate, dance and FFA are harder to calculate because they participate through longer spans without specific competitions during a certain time frame, which reflects more of a base salary.

The board took into consideration the amount of time being spent during the week, such as whether groups were practicing daily versus occasionally, the amount of travel and overall time spent competing.

“Generally speaking, our goal was to get us in the competitive range relative to our surrounding districts,” Hazen added. “We realize we that we don’t always get what we want all the time but try to take care of our people.”

OTHER DISCUSSION

There were several different options that were discussed for board training possibilities in the future, such as work sessions, retreats, COSSBA, PLC and WSBA conferences.

Multiple board members mentioned that trainings that had been held with other districts in the county have been beneficial and could be repeated.

During the leadership and governance portion, the board dove into details on seeking further stakeholder input on major decisions in the future.

While they acknowledged that individuals on different committees were very informed on specific topics, not all members of the board are always as educated on every topic that requires a vote.

The board and administrative team also exchanged opinions on whether to make changes to the current handbooks/dress codes regarding whether students should be allowed to wear hats in the buildings.

Pros and cons to making those adjustments were brought up but not voted upon.

REPORTS

Superintendent Hazen gave reports on facility updates, including the track resurfacing project, carpet at the middle school and elementary school, middle school HVAC system and the new flagpole that will be installed soon.

Summer technology projects to be completed are: audio enhancement upgrades at LHS/LES, audio/visual upgrades at LMS/LHS, new website, new notification/alert system to replace SwiftK12, digital display replacements, clock replacements at LHS, computer lab replacements and network upgrades.

There is a possible match for the student service animal that could bump up the process to begin proper training and acclimation into the schools.

The new LES principal for the 2024-25 school year, Chris Jensen, will be working with his staff in July to determine the best reading intervention system to use moving forward.

In old business, the preliminary budget for the next fiscal year was approved on second reading along with Policies CFB, CH, CHA and KB.

Motions were made and passed for approving the WHSAA resolution, Policy CHD and district salary schedules in new business.

The board accepted the resignations of Shayla Mayes, LES paraprofessional; Nichole Blain, compliance coordinator; John Mickelson, LHS custodian; and Chris Edwards, 6th grade math/science teacher.

The board approved the hiring of Chris Edwards, MS/HS activities director/PE teacher; Madison Reimers, special education paraprofessional; Cherelle Nicholls, special education paraprofessional; Jeffrey Armstrong, special education paraprofessional; Emilie Asay, LES music teacher (pending certification); Danielle Henley, LMS library paraprofessional; and Kelsey Lohof, LES teacher.

Tiffany Anderson was appointed as the new LMS 8th girls volleyball head coach (pending certification), Bob Weber as LHS assistant football coach, Brian May as LHS head girls basketball coach and Lance Anderson as LMS 8th girls basketball head coach (pending certification).

The meeting was adjourned at 8:34 p.m. and the next scheduled monthly board meeting will be held on Monday, July 8, at 7 p.m.