ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601290052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
ROANOKE SCHOOLS want to recruit more black teachers and administrators. Yet many of the minority teachers the system already has are retiring or leaving for better jobs elsewhere.
Roanoke schools would like to hire more teachers like Jeanene Sims, but it's not always easy to recruit them.
Young and intelligent, Sims has become a role model for many students at Addison Middle Magnet School, where she teaches Spanish.
She grew up in Roanoke, graduating from William Fleming High School. She's also a product of Roanoke's cooperative program with Virginia Tech that is designed to provide what city school officials are seeking - more black teachers.
Four of every 10 children in Roanoke's schools are black. Yet only one of every seven teachers is black - about 15 percent.
Of 1,078 city teachers, 154 are black and eight are either Hispanic-American, Asian-American or other ethnic minority. The 31-member central administrative staff for the school system includes five African Americans.
Only six of the city's 29 principals and five of 23 assistant principals are black.
Roanoke's numbers reflect a national imbalance between the racial makeup of educators and that of students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 34 percent of the nation's students are black or some other minority, but only 10 percent of the teachers are minorities.
By the turn of the century, some educators predict, more than 40 percent of all schoolchildren in the nation will be minorities. Less than 7 percent of their teachers are expected to be black or other minorities, because a third of today's nonwhite teachers will retire during the 1990s and fewer minorities are entering the teaching profession.
In Roanoke, about 41 percent of the students are black; other minorities make up about 2 percent of the enrollment. The city's population is about 25 percent black.
"This is a dilemma facing all of us. As enrollments nationally become more diverse, the teaching force is becoming whiter," said Roanoke Superintendent Wayne Harris.
Harris is trying to change Roanoke's numbers. The school division has established goals for hiring more minorities in all professional categories. The targets were set before he became the city's first black superintendent three years ago, but he fully supports them.
"We need diversity at all levels," Harris said. "We should have a staff which is reflective of the community so students can see people they can identify with."
By the 1998-99 school year, Roanoke has minority staffing goals of 20 percent for teachers, 25 percent for central administrators, 30 percent for principals and 34 percent for assistant principals.
The city has made some gains since the targets were set, but Harris admits progress has been slow. Roanoke hired 20 minority teachers this year - 17 African Americans and three Hispanics. But 11 retired or resigned at the end of the last school year, leaving a net gain of nine minorities this year.
"That is the struggle we have. Every year, we have to replace minority teachers just to stay even," Harris said. "You have people retiring and others who get better job offers."
One black principal and one black assistant principal retired, and a black principal resigned. Roanoke hired one new black principal and one black assistant principal, but it had a net loss of one minority at the administrative level.
That pace is too slow for School Board member Melinda Payne.
"Everybody says we should diversify the staff, but I want to see results," Payne recently told Harris and other school administrators.
Roanoke needs more Hispanic-American and Asian-American teachers as well as blacks, she said. She wants the school division to step up its recruiting effort and become more aggressive in trying to hire minorities.
"You can't tell me that the people are not out there," Payne said. "Maybe we need to do more advertising, to be recruiting and planning ahead when we know that we've got retirements coming up."
Harris said the school division already has a strong recruitment effort, with several programs designed to attract more blacks and other minorities into teaching and administrative jobs.
But Roanoke faces stiff competition from other school systems, including some urban localities that pay higher salaries, for the limited pool of minority teachers and administrators, he said.
"We go to some job fairs where there might be more than 15 school systems competing for 10 teachers," Harris said.
Roanoke school officials visit historically black colleges and universities, particularly in Virginia, North Carolina and other nearby states, in search of teachers. They use alumni from some schools to help attract teachers.
Harris tries to recruit minority teachers wherever he goes. He passes out business cards - even at weddings and other social events - and invites potential applicants to contact the school division.
As a member of a national advisory panel for the Urban Superintendent's Program at Harvard University, Harris meets school administrators and teachers from around the country.
"Whenever I'm at Harvard, I try to persuade people to come to Roanoke," he said.
Roanoke's plan to increase teacher salaries to the national average within five years should help it compete better for the limited pool of minority applicants, Harris said.
In addition to recruiting aggressively, Roanoke has established several programs to produce more minority teachers, in what Harris describes as a "grow-your-own approach." They include:
nA program with Virginia Tech, called Tomorrow's Teachers, in which black students from Roanoke receive scholarships to cover almost all of their tuition and other expenses if they are willing to commit to four years of teaching in city schools after they graduate.
Eight corporations and one private donor have joined Tech to help finance the scholarships and other expenses.
Five graduates of the program are now teaching in Roanoke, and five more will graduate this year. About a dozen more students are enrolled.
Sims, the Spanish teacher at Addison Middle, is one of the first five graduates. City schools need to diversify their staffs because students now represent many ethnic groups besides blacks, she said.
"We now have Asians, Hispanics and many other minorities. We have students from Bosnia, Vietnam and other countries," she said. "We need more teachers that students can identify with."
Without the Tomorrow's Teachers program, she said, she probably would not have become a teacher.
The school division pays college tuition for paraprofessionals and teaching assistants on its staff to become licensed teachers if they will agree to one year of teaching in Roanoke for each year of assistance. Six of the nine participants in the program are black. The city assures a job to those who complete the program.
The city has a summer intern program for rising seniors in education to help recruit minority teachers. The program, which includes about 15 participants a year, is open to all races, but most have been minorities. The city pays the students and provides a meal stipend and free lodging. It has hired seven minority teachers who participated in the program.
Harris said he believes that Faye Pleasants, executive for human resources for the schools who heads recruitment, and her staff are making a strong effort to attract more minorities.
"I think we have as many things going on as we can handle. If someone comes forward with something else they think will work, we will try it," Harris said.
Pleasants said the number of minority applicants has increased in recent years as a result of the city's recruitment efforts.
School Board Chairman Nelson Harris said he is satisfied that school administrators are doing all they can to diversify the staff.
"It's tough in the sense that from the data that I've seen, there are not a large number of African-American students going into teaching," he said. "We have goals we want to achieve, but I feel we are doing the best we can."
Vice Chairwoman Marilyn Curtis said she doesn't have any complaint about the school division's efforts to hire more minorities.
"I think Wayne [Harris] is working on this, and we have to give him time to do it," Curtis said. "I don't see it as a problem. I think it's being addressed."
Given the limited pool of potential minority applicants, Wayne Harris said he thinks the goals for minority staffing are realistic, even though they are less than the 43 percent minority enrollment.
"We want goals that are within our reach. These are stretch goals, but they can be attained," he said.
If the targets are too high, they can cause people to become discouraged and lose hope of ever achieving them, he said.
"At some point, a goal of 40 percent might be realistic. Now, it's not."
A diversified staff helps send a message to parents and students that the schools recognize and value cultural and ethnic differences, the superintendent said. But Harris, who has set goals for raising student scores on standardized tests, said academic performance should not depend solely on the ethnic background of teachers.
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. Spanish teacher Jeanene Sims helpsby CNBeighth-grader Shakia Crump with her assignment at Lucy Addison
Middle School. color. Chart by staff: Racial diversity in Roanoke
schools.