LITTLE ROCK — A growing number of school districts must file plans with the state containing strategies to recruit teachers from minority groups because at least 5 percent of their student populations are from minority groups.
School officials said finding candidates of different races and ethnicities is a challenge.
The Harrison School District filed its first plan with the state Department of Education this year. The student body of about 2,770 includes 2.4 percent students who are Asian, American Indian or Pacific Islander; 2 percent who are Hispanic; and 0.86 percent who are black, said Shawn Halbrook, assistant superintendent for the district.
“We’re committed to finding the best instructors for our scholars,” Halbrook said.
As of the 2010-11 school year, 81 percent of the state’s 239 school districts had to complete a plan for recruiting diverse candidates, up 13 percent from five years ago, according to information from the Education Department. In 2006-07, the state had 245 school districts.
“Districts are becoming more diverse across the state due to overall population trends, not unique to the districts themselves,” department spokesman Seth Blomeley said. “These plans must include strategies for each district to use to recruit educators to make their faculty more diverse and to more reflect the student population.”
The law does not require the department to conduct evaluations of the plans or study whether the plans affect the diversity of a district’s teaching staff, Blomeley said.
“At the minimum, they require districts to consider the issue and think about how to increase diversity,” he said.
Harrison’s Minority Teacher and Administrator Recruitment Plan includes strategies such as visiting job fairs and schools that prepare teachers to recruit candidates to the district, Halbrook said.
When Harrison students go into education, the district hopes to stay in touch with those who might come back and teach, he said. The district could assist them with internships during their preparation for teaching.
“That would give us a pipeline in recruitment,” Halbrook said.
Most teachers are white, both in Arkansas and overall around the United States.
An analysis of statistics on certified teachers from the Education Department showed that during the 2010-11 school year, 90 percent of the state’s roughly 50,390 public school teachers were white. Of the 10 percent from minority groups, 9 percent were black and the rest were from other races or ethnicities.
Nationwide, 83 percent of 3.5 million full-time teachers were white, according to the Condition of Education 2011 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, which relied on information from 2007-08. Among the minority groups, 7 percent were black, 7 percent were Hispanic and 3 percent were Asian, American Indian, Alaska native, native Hawaiian, Pacific islander or of two or more races.
After many discussions with colleagues from across the country, Hartzell Jones, the Springdale School District’s deputy superintendent for personnel, has concluded that the best option for recruiting teachers of different races and backgrounds is to encourage high school students to consider the profession.
“The only surefire thing is to grow your own,” Jones said.
Like the state, about 10 percent of Springdale’s teachers are from minority groups. The work force includes 163 employees who are Hispanic, 19 who are Asian, 15 who are American Indian, 14 who are black and 1,888 staff members who are white, Jones said.
By comparison, the district’s student population of 19,376 is 42 percent white, 41 percent Hispanic and 9 percent native Hawaiian or Pacific islander. The remaining 8 percent are Asian, black, American Indian or Alaska native, or of two or more races.
The district’s two high schools are developing academies for students entering the profession, Jones said. Also this year, the district hired a Hispanic first-grade teacher at Lee Elementary School who is a graduate of Springdale High School and John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Jones said.
“Minority teachers are very, very few,” Jones said. “This is a problem nationwide as I’ve traveled to conferences.”
Research that Jones has read is mixed on whether a diverse staff contributes to higher student achievement, and some research suggests no benefit, he said. He still supports the state law that requires districts to have a recruitment plan in place as a reminder to consider the diversity of the staff.
An online application and list of vacancies on the district’s website has generated interest from teachers of minority groups from as far away as California and Oregon.
“What it boils down to is the skills of that person,” he said. Having minority teachers “does make families and kids feel more comfortable.”
Jon Fulkerson, a member of the Arkansas Commission on Closing the Gaps, develops a rapport with his students as a band director in the Blytheville School District, a Mississippi County district of close to 3,000 students where more than three-quarters of the students are black.
Fulkerson said he notices the way students respond to teachers who look like them or have come from similar backgrounds.
“That lets the world open up for those kids,” Fulkerson said. “I’m your typical white guy. I don’t have that kind of a connection.”
The commission studies statistics on achievement gaps between white students and their racially and ethnically diverse peers, Fulkerson said. Recruitment of teachers of different races and backgrounds is not the commission’s focus, but the commission has discussed it, he said.
Teachers of different races and backgrounds are needed in high schools and in music education, he said.
“[Students] need to have that relationship, that close role model,” Fulkerson said. “It’s very important that now kids are able to find a faculty member they can identify with and make a mentor.”
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 11/15/2011