A diverse staff is a boon for all students
By Xavier Botana
When I became superintendent of the Portland
Public Schools, Maine’s largest and most diverse school district, one
consistent message I heard from students, parents and members of the school board
and community was that they wanted our faculty and staff to better reflect the
diversity of our students. That’s why we made staff diversity a key part of the
People goal in our Portland Promise, the district’s strategic plan.
This is the last of four monthly columns I’m
dedicating to discussing important investments in the Portland Public Schools’
2019-2020 budget. The initiatives embody our Portland Promise goals of Equity,
Whole Student, Achievement and People. I’ve previously discussed our
pre-kindergarten expansion initiative, our behavioral health continuum and our
efforts to strengthen our core curriculum. This column focuses on our work to
realize our People goal by attracting, supporting and retaining talented and
diverse staff.
The data is clear: Having teachers of color is
very good for students of color. It also shows that staff diversity benefits
ALL students.
An article in the April 2019 issue of
Educational Leadership, a publication of the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development (ASCD), focuses on data analyses showing that “having
even a single black teacher in elementary school can make a tremendous
difference” for black K–12 students, “improving a student's trajectory far
beyond the elementary years.” http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr19/vol76/num07/The-Impact-of-Teacher-Diversity.aspx
The article says: “Being taught by a black
educator is so salient that it can affect whether or not a student of color not
only finishes high school, but enrolls in college.”
Other students also benefit from learning from
diverse teachers. According to a
Scientific American article: “Being around
people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and
harder-working.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/
When launching our Portland Promise in October
2017, we set a People goal target of having 10 percent of our staff be persons
of color within five years. Just 6.7 percent of our staff met that definition
in the 2016-2017 school year. Last school year, the number had climbed to 7.5
percent. We hope to continue to make gains toward our goal.
Here are some steps we’re taking to increase
staff diversity:
·
The summer of 2019 marked the third year of our educator diversity
program, called TeachPortland. The program provides high school, college
students and adults in our community interested in teaching the opportunity to
gain classroom experience and relevant professional development. We had 44
participants in the program this year, and ultimately hired five participants
this fall.
·
In January 2019, we launched the Education Academy at The New
Mainers Resource Center at Portland Adult Education (PAE). The Education
Academy assists new Mainers trained as teachers in other countries to become
licensed educators here. We had 11 Education Academy graduates this spring and
most are working in our schools – three as teachers; three as educational
technicians; and one as an AmericaCorps/Vista staff assistant at Riverton. Another
volunteers at King Middle School while awaiting work authorization. This year,
we have 11 more students enrolled in Education Academy programs.
·
Just last month, PAE and Southern Maine Community College agreed
to partner in a new initiative called Building the Pipeline to enhance workforce
training and educational opportunities for new Mainers.
All of these initiatives will aid us in
building a workforce that better reflects the wonderful diversity of our
student body. I firmly believe that we will only be as good as our
talented and diverse staff. I’m proud of the work that we’ve done and look
forward to continuing these efforts.
