Portland schools commit to greater staff diversity
By Xavier Botana
Spring is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate many of
our school employees. In April, we have National School Librarian Day and
National Assistant Principals Week. In May, there’s National Teacher Day and
National Teacher Appreciation Week, as well as National School Nurses Day,
School Nutrition Employee Appreciation Week and School Lunch Hero Day.
Here at the Portland Public Schools, we are deeply grateful
to all our staff members for all they do to help our students learn and/or be
ready to learn.
This also is a good time to reflect on how critical Portland
Public Schools’ staff is to the vision of our school district, which states:
“All learners will be fully prepared to participate and succeed in a diverse
and ever-changing world.” Without an excellent, diverse staff our students
can’t succeed in the way we envision. That is why we have made “People” one of
the four goals in our district’s new Comprehensive Plan.
Our People goal states: “The Portland Public Schools
attracts, supports and retains talented and diverse people who use their
strengths to achieve our shared goals.”
In recent columns, I’ve written about the other goals in our
Comprehensive Plan: Achievement, Equity and Whole Student. This month, I’m
focusing on People. This fourth goal undergirds our three other goals and is
critical to our achieving them.
We’re fortunate to have many outstanding staff members.
To cite just a few examples, Ann Hanna, assistant principal
at Ocean Avenue Elementary School, is Maine’s 2017 Elementary School Assistant
Principal of the Year, and Grecia Caraballo, a Spanish immersion teacher at
Lyseth Elementary School, was named the Foreign Language Association of Maine’s
2017 Teacher of the Year. Also, Lauren Cormier, a social studies teacher at
Lyman Moore Middle School, recently was selected as “Teacher of the Year” by
both the VFW Deering Memorial Post and District 10. Cormier was honored for her
commitment to teaching students about U.S. history and the importance of civic
responsibility and service.
We also have many other excellent staff members who may not
have received formal recognition for their efforts, but who work tirelessly to
help students succeed. We know this because our students and parents tell us
about these teachers and other staff that really make a difference in students’
lives.
However, as Maine’s largest and most diverse school
district, we also hear concerns from students that our faculty doesn’t reflect
the diversity in our classrooms. That’s an issue not just for us, but also for
schools across the country. We are now taking steps to try to increase the
diversity of our workforce.
For example, we’re kicking off an initiative this summer
that focuses on creating a pipeline of diverse educators who more closely
reflect the diversity of our students and their families.
The four-week summer program, co-sponsored by the Portland
Public Schools and the University of Southern Maine, seeks to build interest in
the teaching profession while also increasing the diversity of our teachers. The
program will provide an opportunity for participants to experience teaching
firsthand as interns in a PPS summer learning classroom, and to earn three
college credits, tuition-free, by attending an introductory course in education
at USM.
We hope to start with 20 participants comprised of current
high school students, college students who are not currently majoring in
education, and adults from the community who are interested in teaching as a
profession. Program attendees will also receive a stipend for participating.
We’re also launching a new staff training program to promote
cultural competency and foster a deeper understanding of the role of culture in
learning. Our Cultural Competency Training Program will begin with staff from
Central Office, school leaders and teaching staff. We will extend this to all
staff over the next two years. We are grateful for a grant from the Bangor
Savings Bank Foundation to help underwrite some of this work and will continue
to seek outside funding for this program.
These initiatives will help us attract new talent,
strengthen our organizational culture and assist the district in its mission of
ensuring a challenging, relevant and joyful education that empowers every
learner to make a difference in the world.
