Diversity gap persists between students of color and teachers of color

The percentage point differences between students of color and teachers of color by state in the 2010-11 school year for public elementary and secondary schools. Courtesy of the Center for American Progress.

Kofi Obeng, Cliff Mason, and Ali Misra are all are teachers of color who left Catlin Gabel School (CGS) in 2019.

“Our student body is now 44% people of color. Teachers of color are underrepresented here… It is felt more when teachers of color leave,” said Tim Bazemore, the CGS Head of School.

In discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, many often think about the student body: which students attend the school, how they are treated, and how they treat each other.

However, the importance of these ideals also extends to the adults on campus. One aspect of diversity is racial diversity. The CGS Director of Inclusion and Outreach, Jasmine Love, sees teachers of color serving a vital purpose at a school that values diversity within the student body.

“Role models, role models, role models” are what students need, said Love.

Teachers at a PS-12 institution serve an important role in displaying healthy behaviors students can emulate. They don’t just teach math, science, language, history, art, and technical skills; they also guide students in their emotional and mental growth.

While students at CGS all come to the same place to learn, their life experiences vary greatly. Ideally, teachers reflect the same diversity of experience as their students. Role models that represent the diversity of the student body allow for students to build relationships with their teachers.

Given the importance of hiring and retaining diverse faculty, the next concern is how the administration prioritizes this need.

“The issue is that we have a lot of blind spots... We are ‘over here’ while what is happening is ‘over there,’” said Bazemore.

One difficulty for faculty of color is the lack of professional community that comes with the minimal racial diversity at CGS.

“There is a dominant culture here [that is] white and affluent,” said Bazemore.

To increase racial diversity among teachers, CGS works with diversity recruitment firms and conducts outreach at conferences to reach a broader pool of applicants.

CGS also tries to get applicants of color in their final hiring pool. It’s unethical and illegal to try to hit quotas or hire people based on a specific aspect of their identity, but CGS still sets larger goals for diversity in the applicant pools during the hiring process.

“Jasmine will now be a part of the hiring processes,” said Bazemore. However, there are hindrances in increasing the racial diversity of faculty that go beyond the school itself.

“In a state that has the history our state has, we’ve offered jobs to people of color and they’ve said ‘No,’” said Love.

“After having conversations with the teachers who left last year, we realized that certain teachers of color have to culturally code switch here [at CGS] and when they go back home. Because of Portland’s demographics, they are often culturally code switching,” said Bazemore.

Without an easily accessible community in CGS or in the greater Portland area, attracting teachers of color is difficult. Love and Bazemore are aware of the issue and continue to make efforts to understand the experiences teachers of color have here.

They aim to learn what teachers of color are looking for in a work environment to help recruit more role models for our students.