Naked City

About 30 people attended the AISD board of trustees meeting Monday night to support about 100 classified school employees slated to lose their coaching duties. The group was organized by Education Austin, the union representing most AISD employees, and protested the disproportionate number of African-Americans and Hispanics who will lose gigs owing to changes in AISD's coaching requirements.

Until now, AISD has been paying classified employees (nonteachers such as teacher's aides) a flat stipend for coaching duties. Labor law says they should have been getting time-and-a-half for any overtime. When AISD realized this, the district decided that simply paying the overtime would become too expensive, and instead decided to stop using classified employees as coaches. Starting this fall, all coaches will be certified teachers. However, that step would cut the number of African-American coaches by about 40% and Hispanic coaches by 22%, compared to just 6% of whites. The coaches say such an abrupt reduction will deprive many children of much-needed role models.

"These coaches are looked up to like the parents a lot of these kids don't have," said Rae Nwosu, an attendance specialist at Paredes Middle School who is on the executive board of EA.

Last week three coaches filed a class-action lawsuit against AISD, arguing they are owed far more than the district's settlement package for unpaid overtime. But more than the lost wages, many coaches want most of all to continue coaching.

Ken Bush, who has coached football and soccer at Reagan High for most of a decade, stands to lose the $3,000 stipends he earned annually for coaching each sport, which he said requires an extra 25-30 hours a week on top of his regular duties as a special-education tutor. He says he wants the same opportunity that the district offered 15 head coaches, namely to continue coaching for two years while he gets teaching certification. But even if the coaches are unsuccessful in their bid to keep their whistles, Bush still plans to pursue certification, even though there's "no guarantee" he will find a teaching job in AISD.

"I'll just have to see what happens," he said. "I hope something good comes out of all this."