Lack of Teacher Diversity at Crisis Level in Vermont

African-American parents in picturesque Burlington, Vt., located more than 215 miles northwest of Boston, aren’t pleased with the view from inside their city’s public schools.
Although more than 11 percent of the town’s more than 3,500 students are African American, there are no black teachers among Burlington’s 337 public school educators.  “When your child can go through 12 years of school and never see a black teacher, that’s disgraceful,” said Mert Sells, one of the parents who voiced his displeasure during a meeting with School superintendent Jeanne Collins. The district’s failure to hire black teachers is “damn near like a cover-up, a farce. There is no intent to hire black teachers in Vermont,” said Sells. “It’s the same damn thing for years and years and years, and no one’s doing anything about it. To me, it’s sickening.” John Tucker, 72, who also met with Collins, said the racism African-American children face in Vermont schools, though “clouded in polite words,” is worse than what he faced in segregated South Carolina schools in the 1950s.

 The school district first acknowledged the problem 12 years ago, when its 1994-95 report “Hiring Summary for Professional Staff” called for a concerted effort “to attract and retain a diverse staff in order to assume the highest possible level of professional excellence in our schools.” But the problem has languished on the back burner. “We’re clearly not being successful in what we’re doing,” said Superintendent Collins. “However, the district “cares who your (children) see in front of the classroom,” she added.  Attracting young black teachers to Burlington is difficult, she acknowledged. Only 1 percent of Vermont’s population is African American. Hiring decisions are made by the different schools. If the administration hired new teachers without the involvement of individual school staff, those new teachers “would be eaten alive,” Collins said. Another problem: teachers coming in from other states faced different licensing requirements.
Parents suggested the school district step up its efforts to recruit from historically black colleges and develop incentives that would encourage black college students to stay in the area and teach after college. And more black parents need to voice their concern, according to Sells. “The blacks don’t speak up as much as they should. They accept the mediocrity of what’s going on in the schools.” Sells said he and the others intend to keep the subject alive and seek support in the larger community. “It’s a community-wide problem, black and white.”

— Teachers of Color