
DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705010476

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 

SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  132 lines

DIVERSITY ISN'T THE RULE AT THE HEAD OF THE CLASS EXPERTS SAY MORE MINORITIES SHOULD BE SOUGHT FOR TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS.

Staff diversity has long been a concern in public education, especially given the growing number of minority schoolchildren in recent decades.

Walk into a typical public school or central administration office in most of the region's school divisions and what you see will probably fit this pattern:

A majority-white and female teaching staff led by a white principal in a school system where most of the administrators, managers and guidance department professionals are white. And, by and large, the pattern holds up even in school districts where the majority of the students are minorities.

That picture of who's teaching most of the region's children, as well as who's leading many of its school systems, emerged in a Virginian-Pilot analysis of 1996 employment data from 10 area school systems. (See graphic for analysis details.)

Despite the challenges of recruiting minorities and men to work in education, experts say the issue must remain on the front burner. They say all students need to understand that no particular group has a natural monopoly on teaching or education leadership.

``We want to have all kinds of role models for kids,'' said Judy Davis-Dorsey with the Virginia Association of School Personnel Administrators.

Elaine P. Witty, education school dean at Norfolk State University, said true diversity within the teaching and top administrative ranks also gives all children a sense of the cross-section of talent in the ``real world.''

In many cases, staffing patterns have raised concerns about cultural bias in the classroom - in the routing of students to the principal's office to be disciplined, for example.

Elwood T. Lewis, the new superintendent of the Franklin City district, is black.

But William H. Blue, a retiree and activist in the city's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said many of Franklin's black parents still were concerned about the racial composition of the city's teaching force.

Franklin's student enrollment is 63 percent black and 64 percent minority overall.

Its teaching force is about 68 percent white.

``They feel like white teachers often look at their child in school and if the child is a little bit slow, (white teachers) are just ready to put them in special ed to get rid of them,'' Blue said, referring to a common sentiment he said black parents in the city have shared with him.

The newspaper reviewed employment statistics for full-time workers in 10 area districts: Chesapeake, Franklin City, Isle of Wight County, Newport News, Norfolk, Northampton County, Portsmouth, Southampton County, Suffolk and Virginia Beach.

In seven of the 10 districts - all except Isle of Wight, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach - minority children make up the majority of the student enrollment.

Yet many of the professionals who work directly with students or in their behalf are white.

Among teachers, for example, whites make up 54 percent to 86 percent of the field in the 10 districts reviewed.

With the exception of Portsmouth and Suffolk, the majority of the districts' guidance staffers who advise students are white.

And whites also make up the majority of principals in all of the districts except Portsmouth.

Overall, the patterns changed little at the very top of the ladder.

The employment records identified professionals who set broad policies, have responsibility for the execution of those polices, or direct departments or operations as ``officials, administrators and managers.''

Those elected or appointed to office - such as school board members or people appointed to jobs by an outside body - are not included in that group. But school district business officials and superintendents are, to name a few.

Altogether, 72 percent of the people in that category are white, the analysis showed.

Many blacks are at the other end of the ladder.

On the whole, blacks have 54 percent of the ``service'' jobs in areas such as cafeteria maintenance and custodial work. In seven of the 10 districts, however, their proportions among service workers ranged from 65 percent in Newport News to 96 percent in Franklin.

Regardless of race, women apparently have broken through at least a few layers of what's often referred to as ``the glass ceiling'' in education administration.

They make up 47 percent of ``officials, administrators and mangers'' and 48 percent of principals, the analysis showed.

While the government looks at such trends among all school employees, most districts in Virginia and elsewhere have focused in recent years on trying to significantly improve diversity in the teaching ranks - by seeking out more minorities and more men.

Those involved in the push say it's a tall order, though.

Some view teaching as a woman's job.

In the districts reviewed by the newspaper, for example, between 74 percent and 87 percent of teachers are women.

School officials also say recruiting young blacks in particular is difficult because they have more and better-paying career options available to them now than in previous decades - when teaching was one of the few occupations opened to the nation's African Americans.

But school districts and colleges will broaden the pool if they keep working to nurture new teachers and dig deeper for prospective ones, said Barbara Graham, who heads NSU's Department of Early Childhood Education.

Still, it's going to be ``a slow process,'' she said.

For Lytanja Williams, a 10th-grader at Chesapeake's Deep Creek High School, the issue seldom amounts to more than an occasional blip on her radar screen.

Most students are more concerned about a teacher's attitude and approach than a teacher's race or gender, said Williams, who is black.

``I just think about the way the teacher acts. Like, `Will they discipline the child the right way?' And I wouldn't want a boring teacher who just keeps talking and talking,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff Illustration by Janet Shaughnessy/The

Virginian-Pilot

Graphic

METHODOLOGY

The newspaper used a database-manager computer program to analyze

racial and gender information on full-time staffers in 10 area

school districts: Chesapeake, Franklin City, Isle of Wight County,

Newport News, Norfolk, Northampton County, Portsmouth, Southampton

County, Suffolk and Virginia Beach.

The figures were from 1996 reports the districts filed with the

federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Data analysis by staff writer Vanee Vines. Data entry by

editorial assistant Kay Reynolds.