Elementary district looks to increase minority hiring

A new initiative to increase the diversity of District 30’s teaching staff has already drawn the concern of some Board of Education members. As part of the newly adopted strategic plan, school leaders will look to increase minority hiring, as four out of every five students are not white.

However, a pair of board members say that the administration has already failed the first test. At the March 22 board meeting, Cristobal Stewart and Carolyn Pean voiced their concerns over the search for a new principal at the Clear Stream Avenue School. The current principal, Helene Levine, will be leaving at the end of June. Stewart and Pean say that they have been mostly kept in the dark about the process.

Before drafting the strategic plan, members of the community were surveyed to find out what the district’s goals should be for the next five years. One issue raised was that the diversity of the staff is not reflective of the diversity of the student body. Superintendent Dr. Elaine Kanas said that it was important to include that initiative in the strategic plan, and that data is now being kept on the diversity of all job candidates.

Kanas said the district is developing relationships with more organizations, such as the Long Island Black Educators Association and the Long Island Latino Teachers Association. It is also stepping up its recruitment at job fairs and increasing where it advertises for job openings.

According to recent figures, 83.5 percent of the district’s nearly 1,500 students are minorities. Kanas said they do not keep diversity statistics of the district staff.

Every job, Kanas said, will still be filled by the most qualified applicant. “If we don’t have diverse candidates in our pool,” she said, “then we won’t be able to increase the diversity of our teaching staff.”

Stewart said that for a long time in District 30, the number of minority candidates being interviewed for jobs was very low. He said that many qualified minorities were being “screened out” and would not make it to the interview process.