ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 TAG: 9610160043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
When Gary Stultz began teaching in Roanoke 18 years ago, there were only a handful of male teachers in the city's elementary schools. He sometimes felt lonely at schools where there were only one or two male teachers.
As a result of a recruiting campaign in recent years, the city has 48 male elementary teachers.
Four years ago, the school system set a goal for an elementary teaching staff that included 50 men - or 10 percent of the 500 elementary teachers - by the 1998-99 school year.
If the trend continues, the city will have at least 50 male elementary teachers by next year. It hired six men this year.
But the school system will have to hire eight more male teachers to reach the 10 percent goal because it has 587 elementary teachers as a result of hiring more teachers and shrinking class sizes.
"We're getting a few more male applicants, but it's still not easy to recruit more men in the elementary grades," said Faye Pleasants, executive for human resources for Roanoke schools.
"We would like to hire more, but there are not as many viable applicants available as we would like," she said.
Stultz, a fourth-grade teacher at Fallon Park Elementary, said he would like to see at least one male teacher at every grade in each of the city's 21 elementary schools.
He said it is important for elementary pupils to have both male and female teachers because many children come from single-parent families now.
"Some children can't function well only with women role models," said Stultz, who is president of Roanoke Education Association.
Stultz said it's hard for the city to hire more male elementary teachers quickly because "not that many men are going into education and those that do usually go into middle and high school."
When Stultz began teaching, he said, the pay was so low that men could make more money as carpenters, electricians and other trade jobs.
"It's been a slow process - trying to get more male teachers," he said. "When I was in college, I was the only male in my class for the lower elementary grades."
Nearly 20 percent of the city's 1,136 teachers are men, but the majority are in middle and high schools.
The breakdown by sex for central administrators, principals, and assistant principals is almost equal: 46 are men and 45 are women.
The principals at Roanoke's two high schools and four of five middle schools are women. Twelve elementary principals are men and nine are women.
Roanoke County schools also have experienced difficulty in recruiting more male elementary teachers, said Berkley Lucas, personnel director.
Six percent of the county's elementary teachers are men.
"We've hired more in the past couple of years, but we would like to have more," Lucas said.
Roanoke continues to make slow progress toward its goal of having a teaching staff of 20 percent minorities.
This year, the racial breakdown for teachers is 85.3 percent white, 13.8 percent black and 0.9 percent other minorities. Of the city's 1,136 teachers, 970 are white, 156 are black and 10 are Hispanic, Asian or other minority.
About 40 percent of the city's students are black. Roanoke's numbers reflect a national imbalance between the racial makeup of students and educators.
Thirty-four percent of the nation's students are black or some other minority, but only 10 percent of the teachers are minorities, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Roanoke school administrators said they are trying to recruit more minorities. The school system operates several programs to produce more minority teachers. This includes a 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 teaching four years in city schools after they graduate.
The school system also has a summer intern program in education for rising seniors to help recruit minority teachers. The city pays the students and provides a meal stipend and free lodging.
School officials said they face stiff competition from other school systems for the limited pool of minority teachers.
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Staffing breakdown. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB