Hiring new football coach

[commonsenselady]

The taxpayers in Marble Falls should be outraged about the decision of MFISD to hire Todd Dodge and keep Cord Woerner in a meaningless job in Central Office. Our tax money will pay Dodge $110,000 a year plus a generous expense account for the job that Woerner was paid $85,000 for. Woerner of course is still earning $85,000 to sit in Admin and do a "job" that doesn't even exist. It was just made up so they didn't have to go to the effort of firing him. Classroom teachers can't buy supplies, technology can't keep the computers running but MFISD decided that what is really important is filling seats in the overpriced football stadium they built.

[ohcuriousone]

I can deal with paying a qualified coach. Where I think the school board dropped the ball is the reassignment. In the past, in Marble Falls and other places, the reassignment of head coaches was to a much lower position. ie, P E teacher at Spicewood Elementary. When an employee is reassigned the object is to make it very attractive for them to LEAVE. The district has paid Cord his salary every payday since he was hired. We do not owe him anything. I understand that Cords' ties to the community are very strong, that being said, we still don't owe him anything. I think that the board erred in making the "title in the office" much too attractive. Cord needs to be looking for a job. If we have done without a Director of Special Services this long I don't think we need one when we are supposed to be pinching pennies throughout the district.

Now with that said. Call your school board members. I have heard several of them say, "sometimes we vote the way we do because we don't know what people think". Tell them what you think and better on the phone that an email. The board members are:

Rick Edwards, President
Kevin Naumann, Vice-President
Craig Mabray, Secretary
Mike Savage
Karl Westerman
Tommy Chaney
Kelly Fox

If you want to go the email route, go to the districts website and under "School Board" there are direct links to their email addresses.:villagers:

[mdarling]

"Sometimes we vote the way we do because we don't know what people think"? Sometimes people need to use the brains they were given! This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

[commonsenselady]

A football coach is not worth $110,000 plus expenses to our district. We already spend over twice the average for school districts our size on athletics--this will make it worse. (figures from the district expenditure report which will be discussed at tonights meeting) We are a SCHOOL district that has a football team as an extra curricular activity. We should hire teachers who can coach as an extra job assignment. Instead we hire coaches and then stick them in classrooms for one or two periods a day (when they are not on coaching duties) and they are supposed to be teaching history or some other subject they can read out of a book to the class. Dodge has already said he is looking forward to bringing in a new staff. I imagine we'll be firing teachers so he can get his professional coaches in place. It's time for a new school board!

[JakRussll]

A football coach is not worth $110,000 plus expenses to our district. We already spend over twice the average for school districts our size on athletics--this will make it worse. (figures from the district expenditure report which will be discussed at tonights meeting) We are a SCHOOL district that has a football team as an extra curricular activity. We should hire teachers who can coach as an extra job assignment. Instead we hire coaches and then stick them in classrooms for one or two periods a day (when they are not on coaching duties) and they are supposed to be teaching history or some other subject they can read out of a book to the class. Dodge has already said he is looking forward to bringing in a new staff. I imagine we'll be firing teachers so he can get his professional coaches in place. It's time for a new school board!


Well that is one way to look at it. Another way, is to look at the money we spent on a new stadium and the need to pay for it. Winning football programs put butts in the seats. The tickets are not free so the choice of a coach who can bring the district a winning program is pretty much self-funded as the compensation argument goes. Are you really suggesting that a History teacher take on the part-time role of varsity football coach?

For those of you that are not familiar with Coach Dodge, visit this Wikipedia link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Dodge

As a side note to this bio - most people are not aware that Todd Dodge was the consensus high school All-American quarterback his Sr year. He was the Parade Magazine top quarterback in the country. (Not honorable mention or runner-up.....THE top QB in the country.) UT wanted him so bad that they hired his High School coach as his college quarterback coach. Though I cringed when he chose UT (I wanted him to go to Purdue) this man knows how to win football games. If you have a kid on his team, I will give you this unsolicited advice. Shut Up! This man will not take barking from a parent........NOT ONCE! So, get your feelings hurt now and get over it! Coach Dodge will play the best 11 players on his team on both offense and defense if he has to. If you have thin skin then do your little Theodore a favor and stay home and listen to the game on the radio or go and sit with the visitors. With Coach Dodge, boys are about to become men.

[commonsenselady]

I concede that we are past the days when we could expect a head coach to actually teach a class in the high school. The school board made that clear when they restructured their staffing chart and revealed Monday that Dodge would be reporting directly to O'Connor and would not be assigned to the high school. He is now above the principals in the pecking order!! BUT what worries me, is that Dodge is "looking forward to hiring his staff" and has applications from all over the state from coaches and wants to bring his son (who is still in college) on as a coach next year. We should be hiring QUALITY teachers not a dozen coaches who will have to fill teaching jobs a few hours a day because (thankfully), asst. coaching is not a full time job. These people are applying to come here to be coaches and from years of experience, I know that teaching history or health or economics or whatever they get put into will be their sideline which they do not consider nearly as important as coaching. The students suffer from having a coach as a "teacher" because coaches don't take the subject matter as seriously and they are absent, requiring a substitute, often for gamedays and training events and district meetings, etc.

[kwesterman]

Commonsense lady, you are replete with half-truths, innuendo and conjecture. You have incriminated the administration, the school board, the new coach, the new coach’s son and the old coach… and basically all coaches in general. To be succinct, you do not know what you are talking about. Answers to real questions can be had but it appears you have no desire to deal with the truth. Rather, it appears your clear objective is to impugn people you know nothing about for making decisions you don’t understand simply because you think you know better while armed with nothing but your biased, uninformed opinion.

Karl Westerman
MFISD School Board Trustee

[Feline]

:popcorn:

[KINGCHIP]

Now let us get ourselves down in 3A where we belong.

[commonsenselady]

I stand by my statements.
1. The superintendent says we have to cut over $1million from our budget yet we hire a very expensive head coach and keep the old coach on the payroll. That is a poor financial decision.
2. When you hire a teaching staff based on who has the best coaching credentials and will fit in with the new head coaches plan, you are not looking for the best teachers for the academic classes they will cover.
I have many years experience at MFHS and I know we can do better for our students.

[butchkemper]

I stand by my statements.
1. The superintendent says we have to cut over $1million from our budget yet we hire a very expensive head coach and keep the old coach on the payroll. That is a poor financial decision.
2. When you hire a teaching staff based on who has the best coaching credentials and will fit in with the new head coaches plan, you are not looking for the best teachers for the academic classes they will cover.
I have many years experience at MFHS and I know we can do better for our students.

Be brave, be bold, be identified, and quit hiding behind a nickname. Sign your real name to your posts. Credibility of anonymous posters is not very high.

Butch

[kwesterman]

There is a lot of shifting of responsibilities, new titles, etc. taking place in central office as the new superintendent constructs his leadership team and fills vacant positions. When the dust settles, there are no new positions approved by the board so the idea being floated that the district is double paying for a head football coach is a fallacy.

Further, school districts do not fire teachers, coaches or other professional staff without good cause such as well documented gross performance deficiencies or malfeasance. Anyone “fired” outside of these parameters would have a bullet-proof law suit against the district. Any long term employee of the district should know this.

Before charging the administration and school board with financial irresponsibility, it would be helpful to get the facts straight. The salary offered the new AD/head coach is within the norm for 4A school districts with similar responsibilities and is not what has been referenced in this thread. If anyone wants to ask for the salary specifically, they should contact the superintendent as has the local press.

Please understand, I am not speaking on behalf of the board but rather myself. As to the charge that academics plays second fiddle, I can assure you nothing is more important to me as a board member than academics and trying to secure the best future possible through quality education for the next generation of our community. I am convinced the school district cannot provide this without a balanced approach including excellent academics, career readiness, outstanding fine arts offerings and exceptional athletics programs.

Karl Westerman
MFISD School Board Trustee

[Reapp]

I think this thread has run it's course. Freedom to express your views is one of the great things about this country, but we do need to try to play nice in the sandbox folks.