THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 23, 1995 TAG: 9503210107
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
A scholarship program to encourage black high school graduates in Norfolk to become teachers will require more money and a change in attitudes about the teaching profession, says the director of the minority-recruitment program.
Francine Coward-Reid, director of Tomorrow's Teachers, said the organization is trying to raise $50,000 to keep the year-old program alive. There's money left to recruit only two more students, she said.
``Our hope is that the Norfolk community will become more aware of this critical need and take more ownership of what's going on,'' said Coward-Reid, who is employed by Virginia Tech.
The program was started last spring as a partnership between Virginia Tech, Norfolk schools and Mobil Corp. to recruit local black high school grads and educate them to teach math, science and technology.
In exchange for a four-year academic scholarship to Virginia Tech, participants agree to return to Norfolk to teach in one of those fields for at least four years.
Mobil provided $125,000 to launch the program, but the company's continued financial support is not guaranteed, Coward-Reid said.
``I think they'd like to see how committed the community is,'' she said.
Coward-Reid said the cost of a four-year education at Virginia Tech now runs about $40,000.
Besides money, finding black students interested in becoming teachers also has been a challenge, she said.
Students, many on the advice of parents, avoid the profession because of negative images such as low pay and school violence, Coward-Reid said.
Ernest Mitchell, a Granby High grad and the first participant, turned down an athletic scholarship to join the program. He said wanted to become a teacher because ``I like helping people in any way I can, and I figured teaching was a way I could do it.''
Norfolk School Board members have pushed for more black teachers.
``I feel strongly that some of the problems we have in discipline could be eliminated if we had a larger number of African-American males in our school system,'' member Anna Dodson said recently.
The city's student population is roughly 60 percent black, 35 percent white and 5 percent Hispanic and Asian American, but the teaching staff's numbers don't reflect that.
Last year, the racial composition of Norfolk's teachers was 61.7 percent white, 37.2 percent black and 1.1 percent Hispanic and Asian American.
Black men comprise a tiny segment of Norfolk's school teachers. Last year, most of the system's 2,449 full-time teachers - eight of every 10 - were women. Of 1,237 elementary teachers, 30 were black men and 52 were white men. On the secondary level, 103 of the 1,212 teachers were black men and 232 were white men.
Even so, Norfolk's share of black teachers is well above the statewide school district average of 18 percent. But local officials cite a steady erosion over the past decade: In 1986-87, School Board members said, Norfolk's teaching force was 41 percent black.
Eddie P. Antoine II, senior director of personnel, said it is significant the decline is not greater considering that national studies show only 6 percent of blacks enter college with plans to become teachers.
Norfolk also works with Norfolk State and Old Dominion universities on minority recruitment. The universities oversee two programs that groom prospective black teachers - Pathways to Teaching and Troops To Teachers. by CNB