Schools look for teacher diversity

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on November 09, 2007

How to transform Amherst into a town that attracts teachers from diverse racial groups is the question a group of parents, teachers and schools administrators are now pondering in earnest.

Amherst Education Foundation is sponsoring a series of meetings and likely will help pay for initiatives that the group identifies to recruit and retain black, Hispanic and Asian teachers.

At a recent brainstorming session at Fort River Elementary School about 20 people discussed ideas that included forming a partnership with the national A Better Chance program, having families sponsor new teachers, paying for teacher outings, and drawing "hot shot" teachers from different racial and cultural backgrounds to Amherst.

Some 37 percent of Amherst schoolchildren are students of color, as of October 2006, the latest figures available, said Kathryn Mazur, director of human resources for the schools. She said teachers of color total 18 percent.

Budget cuts were blamed for a scaled-back teacher-mentoring program that helped teachers get through their challenging first year. There used to be a teacher at Fort River, whose full-time job was to mentor new teachers, said outgoing Principal Russell Vernon-Jones, who announced Monday that he's stepping down at the end of the school year.

Now there are a few teachers who are expected to put in 20 hours annually to helping other teachers over the course of a year.

Participants discussed paying for outings for all new teachers, and asking families to sponsor new teachers by inviting them to dinner and other social occasions.

Vernon-Jones said sponsoring families is a good idea, but also suggested new teachers might enjoy getting together to talk about the frustrations of teaching rather than attending social occasions, which they might see as "just one more PR (public relations) task."

Vernon-Jones said he has tried to hire teachers of color, but they have declined, in part, he thinks, because it is not readily clear to them how they can connect with a community of color in Amherst.

Jim Rodgers, president of a high school parent group, said it might be good to hire a "hot shot" teacher from a racial minority group, much like the University of Massachusetts brought James Baldwin to Amherst in the mid-1980s.

There were complaints expressed at the meeting that children of color are sent of out classes for disciplinary action more than white students, a problem some parents think is more indicative of societal racial bias than anything the children are doing.

Amherst School Committee member Kathleen Anderson suggested that AEF consider paying the expenses for a few students and defraying the cost for some teachers to attend a workshop on "white privilege" to be held in Springfield in April.

Amherst is perceived by people from some racial groups as having an inhospitable environment, Anderson said.

If townspeople and the schools community show that they are striving for "race and cultural competency, that might make a difference to people who are hesitant to come to this happy valley," she said.

John Brigham, a board member of the A Better Chance program, part of a nationwide scholarship program for students of color with a chapter in Amherst, suggested participants should more aggressively speak out when people make racist remarks or send racist letters to local newspapers.

The recent public discussion over the hiring of a middle school guidance counselor with a criminal record - Tailb Sadiq - got "a little uglier than I thought it would be," Brigham said.

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.