<p>My daughter is a high school junior. She wants to be a middle school, possibly high school later, social studies/language arts teacher and basketball coach. She can major in social studies/language arts 4th - 8th grade education and get a coaching minor. Not all the schools offer the coaching minor. Does anyone know how important that is to get a coaching job? She would be happy at a private school as a teacher as long as they pay enough to live on with a little left over. </p>
<p>Any recommendations on good programs in Texas or education programs with unique features? She will most likely go to a public college, as she will be entering as a transfer student and will probably not qualify for high academic or financial scholarships.</p>
<p>I work in a middle school in WI, so things may be different. In our district, teaching and coaching positions are posted differently. One does not have to be a teacher to be a coach. I do believe that teachers probably have an advantage. There really aren’t any requirements for coaches. At the middle school sports level, they look for people with some experience as either a coach or a player, but someone with an interest and little experience might get hired as an assistant if there are no other applicants. At the high school level, experience as a coach or player will be more important so the coaching minor won’t hurt. </p>
<p>On the teaching side, middle school social studies and language arts teachers are a dime a dozen. We hired a 7th grade social studies teacher a year ago and had over 80 applicants, and we are not a high paying district. The person we hired had 8 years of experience and had been laid off due to budget cuts. Even here in WI, preference is often given to teachers who are bilingual in Spanish. I would imagine that is more so in Texas. She would be better off minoring in Spanish and playing college basketball if possible without worrying about getting the coaching minor unless it works into her schedule reasonably well.</p>
<p>I live in a football-crazed district in east Texas. Our head coach is also athletic director (i.e., manages a budget, but full-time athletics). The offensive and defensive coordinators both have academic or academic support titles and receive a stipend for coaching. The position coaches under the coordinators are almost all academic positions with coaching stipends. Unless you’re in a really affluent district, I suspect that’s the way it’s done there, too.</p>
<p>So, an aspiring coach typically needs an academic field. Social studies is pretty popular for coaches, although our swim coach is an English teacher (and a very good one, from what I’m told). Have you noticed what college(s) the student teachers at your D’s school come from? I’d call, e-mail, or visit the teacher certification folks there with your questions. At least in our case, there is a “feeder school” from where we get our student teachers and they have the inside track to entry-level positions because we already “know” them. </p>