District touts equity; parents are dubious

There have been instances we were not in agreement . . . it’s a team approach.”

Michelle Gallo, Asst. superintendent for human resources

Just 13 percent of Baldwin school students are white — a statistic a number of parents are telling district officials is not reflected in the men and women who teach them.

Michelle Gallo, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources, said she hoped to change that soon, sharing her new diversity recruitment efforts at a March 9 Board of Education meeting.

Black students make up 47 percent of the student population, according to numbers provided to the Herald last summer. Another 32 percent are Hispanic or Latino, while 5 percent are Asian, native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 3 percent multi-racial. Yet of the 376 full-time teachers employed by the school, only about 30 of them are teachers of color.

Part of Gallo’s plan? Finding those teachers among the very students who need them. Encouraging students to follow career paths into education through teacher preparations programs, education academies and internships.

But in the short term, Gallo said the administration is recruiting from the Nassau Boards of Cooperative Educational Services diversity fair, and partnering with colleges with diverse student populations — something Baldwin has been doing over the past seven years.

Much of this, however, comes at the heels of an October school board meeting when trustees voted unanimously to broaden recruitment efforts and hire a more diverse teaching staff. It released a statement at the time declaring that this was not only “the right thing to do,” but that it was “providing a more expanded view of the world” while also providing “a better educational experience.”

The district still must follow hiring and recruitment policies

regulated by the state, Gallo said. That includes requiring state certification, fingerprinting, candidate interviews, classroom observations and reference checks. Teacher candidates are rated on a five-point scale based on perceptions of authoritativeness, personability, leadership, overall impression, and alignment with organizational culture.

However, some parents still question the district’s equity practices. Nyreedawn and Stephen Emeli, for example, say they are concerned over what they describe as the district’s blind eye to the victories of the girls’ track team.

“How does this behavior show equity within the school district?” they asked.

And parent Erik Mahler pointed to a lack of diversity and favoritism in hiring, singling out the superintendent’s recent hiring of an assistant principal at Steele Elementary School he says didn’t fulfill the bilingual qualification listed in a job posting. Some 43 percent of students at Steele are Hispanic.

Mahler felt the new assistant principal may have had a leg up on others seeking the position because he was a reading teacher in the Glen Cove School District, where Shari Camhi was an assistant superintendent.

That assistant principal wasn’t alone, however, according to district public records. At least seven Glen Cove faculty members have been hired since Camhi became Baldwin’s superintendent in 2014, including teachers, an assistant principal, a director who was later promoted to principal, and an administrator. One of these hires reportedly told a news outlet back in 2015 that Camhi “approached her when she heard she was retiring and offered her the position.”

But those decisions aren’t left to one person, Camhi told Mahler. It’s a collective endeavor among district administrators after a multi-step process that includes a number of voices within the administration. They also took precautions so no one felt overpowered by someone else in the decision-making process who might otherwise outrank them.

“There have been instances that we were not in agreement,” Gallo said. “It’s a team approach.”