More people will have the opportunity to coach athletics in Limestone County Schools after the Limestone County Board of Education approved an adjustment to the salary schedule at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The board approved an amendment to the 2019-2020 salary schedule to allow 12-month classified employees to coach as long as it does not interfere with their primary job duties. It is an amendment LCS Athletic Director Rusty Bates is glad to see.

“(The previous rule) hurt our classified people who are not teachers — our support staff people,” Bates said. “That’s who this is intended to help. It’s not a large number of people, but we have several custodians and several other people in support roles who would like to help us coach and haven’t been able to.”

Previously, only nine-month employees were allowed to receive a coaching supplement. Twelve-month employees, such as custodians, mechanics and maintenance workers, could only coach on a volunteer basis. Bates said the new rule will allow those employees to be paid for their time as long as coaching does not interfere with their primary job.

“This is common practice around the state,” Bates said. “I’m not real sure why we had it in there like that (with only nine-month employees being able to receive a supplement). It’s just one of those rules that had been passed down through the years. Previously, if they coached, they had to be a volunteer, and you hate to have a supplement available and not be able to pay someone for their time if they are doing the job.”

Bates said the salary schedule adjustment will be a huge help in filling coaching positions that might otherwise go unfilled.

“The way it is now, we’re always short on coaches, and you hate to have someone who’s an employee and wants to coach, but you can’t let him because of the technicality of a rule,” Bates said. “You get to a situation where people are coaching two or three different sports, and we’re trying to eliminate that. I know we have at least two custodians now who had wanted to coach in the past and were not able to.”

The new salary schedule takes place immediately, Bates said.

“This opens up some doors instantly for people we needed to fill a couple of spots,” Bates said. “The biggest impact will be in the spring sports, but it also gives us the ability to plan for it next year when we start our new supplement schedule. We can go ahead and plan for that supplement to be used. It’s going to help us a ton.”