How Districts are Trying to Recruit Minority Teachers

A Valley View School District 365U parent recently asked Superintendent James Mitchem Jr. why there were "very few" African American teachers in the district. African American students last school year. 

“It is a very important issue for the vitality of this school district,” she wrote. “It may also help bridge the achievement gap.” Her question and Mitchem's answer were posted on the district website. 

Mitchem wrote that he, too, was concerned with the demographics of district staff not reflecting the demographics of its students. He named some challenges for having a more diverse staff. 

“Only a very small percentage of minority professionals go into the field of education, and when they do, they traditionally try to work within the community for which they lived,” Mitchem wrote. “This makes it hard to compete for minority candidates.” 

When minority candidates do apply, by law, there is no indication of their demographics on their applications. That makes hiring a minority candidate a "hit or miss situation," he wrote.  

Districts like Valley View 365U, and want qualified, minority candidates in their ranks.

Diverse students tend to have higher academic, personal and social performance when taught by teachers from their own ethnic group, according to a study done by the National Collaborative on Diversity in America's Teaching Force. 

Attendance, disciplinary referrals, dropout rates, overall satisfaction with school, self-concept, cultural competence and the students' sense of the relevance of school are all positively affected.  

To do so, each district has to walk the line between actively recruiting minority candidates and finding qualified candidates of all races. 

The three districts focus on certain tactics to reach out to qualified teachers of different nationalities: building partnerships with teaching colleges, advertising in minority-focused publications and attending jobs fairs in and out of the state. 

“We are all mindful to increase the number of our minority staff members because our student body is becoming more diverse,” said Superintendent Community High School District 99. 

Building a diverse teaching staff has been a strategic goal for District 68 since 2005. The district presented the findings of an audit last week

While the district is making progress, School Board President Tom Ruggio doubts D68’s teaching staff will ever mirror its student demographics. Most Illinois teaching candidates come out of suburban schools, Ruggio said, which are predominantly white. 

“I don’t think we’ll ever get to the same percentage,” Ruggio said. “We’re trying to move in that direction, to have someone who looks like them and talks like them and understands cultural ways to help relate to the students.”

The problem is both race and gender, he said.

“One of my frustrations has always been trying to get more males into the district and into the elementary schools,” Ruggio said. 

All three districts emphasized that in recruiting candidates of any race or gender, quality is paramount.

“We face the same challenges any other district does,” said Larry Randa, director of community relations for Valley View. “You’re trying to find the right candidates that fit into your area and your vision.”

District 68 initially tried to spend more time at job fairs and colleges to find more qualified minority candidates. While staff was out for sometimes days at a time at events, the time wasn’t translating into results.

“It hasn’t been as effective as we hoped it would be,” Ruggio said. “We put a lot of effort into it. We weren’t finding that many highly qualified candidates coming out from all of it.”

So the district decided to concentrate on universities that produced quality teacher candidates and also produced high numbers of minority candidates, such as Illinois State, Southern, Western and Eastern Illinois universities.

“We’ve tried to form business partnerships with these universities so their students could be familiar with Woodridge,” he said.

Students from those universities are invited to student teach at District 68.

“The most promising ones are the candidates that, if an opening came up, they were then hired to come back and be teachers,” Ruggio said.

Valley View and District 99 also attend minority-related job fairs. Valley View reaches out to colleges and universities that have significant minority graduates for education, such as Northeastern, Concordia, Chicago State and Southern Illinois. Valley View has recruited in Indiana, District 99 in Michigan. 

“If possible, we try to take student teachers from those universities,” Randa said. 

Superintendent Mark McDonald said one challenge has been the economy. The district has fewer resources to put into recruitment and there are fewer positions to fill.

Fortunately, he said, the district’s quality is a recruitment tool in itself.

“We are in a relatively good position,” McDonald said. “We recruit minority candidates because we pay well and have a good reputation. There are a lot of advantages here.” 

For each district, building a more diverse staff is a work in progress. 

 “We haven’t arrived at the place we’d like to be, but we’re continuing to move forward to be more reflective of our overall community,” McDonald said. 

"Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back. We just keep plugging forward with it.”