District struggles to retain minority teachers

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, April 26, 2004 | 10:52 a.m.

Despite aggressive efforts the Clark County School District continues to struggle with hiring -- and keeping -- minority teachers, educators said.

The school district hired a total of 320 minority teachers for the 2002-03 academic year. The district retained 249 of those teachers, a retention rate of 78 percent.

That's actually higher than the district-wide retention rate for all new teachers over the same period, which was 74 percent. But minority teachers are a scarce commodity and increasingly difficult to replace, said Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia.

"Every school district in this country is in the same boat," Garcia said. "We all want minority teachers to serve as role models for our kids, we all want a diverse work force. But the reality is there just aren't enough to go around."

The district's lowest retention rate was among black teachers. The school district hired 112 black teachers for the 2002-03 academic year. As of this year 80 of them -- 72 percent -- remained.

The district has tried aggressively recruiting minorities -- Hispanic and black teachers in particular -- with minimal success, Garcia said. That's one reason why the district has teamed up with the teachers union for a new program aimed at encouraging minority high school students to pursue careers in education, Garcia said.

John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, said people are trying too hard to find reasons for the high minority teacher turnover.

"Everyone keeps looking for these deep-seated ideas, but I think the real reason we lose them (minority teachers) is the same reason we lose so many new teachers -- they're not from here, this isn't home," Jasonek said. "That's why we need to grab kids who are already living here, who have family ties here. That's the only way we're going to keep them."

The union's latest initiative, Student to Teacher Enlistment Project, or STEP, promises minority high school students college-credit classes and support toward a career in education.

To kick off the STEP program the union hosted a luncheon Tuesday with Garcia and Gov. Kenny Guinn as featured guests.

"We've already identified 100 honor students who are interested and would be the first generation in their families to go to college," said Jasonek of the program, which begins in August. "There's no way we can fail with this provided we get the community's support."

The district's efforts on behalf of minority teachers has fallen short, said Louis Overstreet, executive director of the Urban Chamber of Commerce.

After hearing from a black first-year teacher who says a racially motivated hostile work environment forced her resignation, the Urban Chamber of Commerce has asked Garcia to establish a task force to investigate.

The experiences of the teacher who resigned are "both systematic and symptomatic of what we believe has its basis in unabated institutional racism with the Clark County School District," Overstreet wrote in a letter to Garcia.

Garcia said the district already has a diversity committee and a new task force is not needed. While the district's personnel confidentiality rules prohibited him from discussing the situation Overstreet referred to, Garcia said he believed the district is doing its best to encourage and mentor minority teachers.

"If you look at any employer in this state, there's no one who comes close to us in trying to recruit a diverse work force," Garcia said. "Certainly we can always do better, and that's what we're constantly striving for. But no matter what we do it doesn't seem to be good enough for the Urban Chamber (of Commerce)."

In 2002, the latest year for which figures were available, blacks made up 7 percent of the country's teachers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

In Clark County 6.3 percent of the licensed personnel, which includes teachers, speech pathologists and counselors, are black, said Tom Rodriguez, executive director of Diversity and Affirmative Action Programs for the school district.

Blacks also account for 23.6 percent of all support employees and 13.2 percent of all administrators -- including two of the district's five region superintendent positions.

One way of measuring diversity is to compare the percentage of a minority group in the work force with the total population, Rodriguez said. Given that the 2000 census put Clark County's black population at 9.1 percent, blacks are under-represented in the district's teaching force and over-represented by support staff and administrators, Rodriguez said.

In fact, Rodriguez said, it is Hispanics -- not blacks -- who are the most under-represented in the district's teaching pool. Hispanics account for 32 percent of the student population but just 5.9 percent of licensed personnel.

"If we could go out and hire 1,000 qualified minority teachers tomorrow we would," Rodriguez said Friday. "Historically fewer minorities go to college and become teachers. There's fierce competition for those that do, and we're going up against every other major school district in the country when it comes to recruiting."