Reaching out on the far reaches of Long Island

In concert with the NAACP, school districts on the eastern end of Long Island are reaching out to recruit minority teachers.

After the Long Island newspaper Newsday reported that majority white school districts on the island hire few if any minority teachers, the East End NAACP and other community organizations joined with local school districts to offer a Career Fair for Culturally Diverse Educators in each of the last two springs.

In March the jobs fair, which was open to all, was organized by the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Sixteen school districts, of 50 that were invited, sent representatives to meet with the 1,000 candidates at the Westhampton Beach Special Education Center.

"It's a worthwhile effort," said Larry Blank, president of the BOCES Educators of Eastern Suffolk. "They were very happy with it." He said diversity is an issue in his BOCES district, where only a handful of teachers represent minorities among a faculty of more than 800.

"It could be helpful for us and for many of the districts in this region," he said.

Utica program offers options to SRPs, students

In an effort to recruit teachers who will not only help replace an expected wave of retirees but also close the minority gap and reduce class sizes, the Utica city school district has embarked on a two-pronged "grow-your-own" program that targets current students and School-Related Personnel, said Albert Martorella, president of the Utica Teachers Association and a member of the school board's ad hoc personnel committee.

About 40 percent of the district's 8,000 students are minorities, compared with only 5 percent to 10 percent of its 650 teachers. The district expects 200 to 250 teachers to retire in the next five years.

The committee used a federal Goals 2000 grant to address "how we can come up with a work force that better reflects our community," Martorella said.

First, the schools invited students to join Educators for the Future clubs to cultivate interest in the field. About 80 students joined the clubs, half of them minorities.

The committee then surveyed the district's teaching assistants, represented by the Service Employees International Union, to find out how many would be interested in returning to college so they could become teachers. Eighty said they would aspire to teaching careers. Fifteen were minorities.

Martorella said the committee is talking to local colleges and businesses about establishing scholarships specifically for teaching assistants.

SUNY Geneseo cultivates cultural diversity

SUNY Geneseo and Xerox have joined forces in a center to develop and support a culturally diverse teacher corps.

The Center for Multicultural Education promotes the academic success of students from all ethnic and cultural communities, especially those that have been, historically, least well served by U.S. schools.

According to center Director Edgar Miranda, a member of United University Professions (which represents academic and professional faculty of SUNY), its goals are threefold:

• to develop connections among the School of Education at Geneseo, the minority communities in the greater Rochester area and its school systems;

• to recruit talented students from these communities into the teaching profession and to support them academically, socially and financially as they progress; and

• to develop and disseminate programs that support educators from all backgrounds in their work in culturally diverse schools.