Lansing to pursue minorities in district's first teacher fair

The Lansing School District's need for more minority teachers is one of the driving forces behind its first ever recruitment fair Friday.

Of the district's 1,450 teachers 293, or 20 percent, are minorities, and 85 of those teachers are eligible to retire in five years.

"We have to be concerned about parents and one of the things they are concerned about is that our teachers reflect the student population. And we know we don't," said Bari Thomas, the district's human resources director.

Nearly 60 percent of the district's 17,600 students are minorities and 80 percent of the teachers are white.

"Kids' role models are people they can identify with," said Thomas, who's spearheading the fair. "When kids don't see people they can identify with, it's more difficult to develop a relationship with them."

The district invited juniors and seniors from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, a historically black public university.

Other efforts to bring minority teachers to the district include sending a recruiter in April to North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C., another historically black university. In May, the district will recruit from the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas, which has a high Hispanic population.

Although recruiting minorities is a top priority, the district also needs science and math teachers and has 22 open special education positions, Thomas said.

"The Lansing School District is stepping out," said Jerry Swartz, a special education teacher at Eastern High School. "I'm excited about bringing young people here who are new to the district.''

The district will hold the fair at Eastern High School's Don Johnson Field House. Human resources staff members along with administrators, area directors, principals and teachers will attempt to attract job candidates for the 2002-03 school year.

Job candidates are required to have a state teacher certification. Out-of-state students who want to teach in Michigan could be required to take a test for state certification. The starting teacher's salary in the Lansing School District is $32,000 a year.

District officials won't know the number of openings until the end of the school year, but so far, 44 teachers plan to retire.

In addition to Central State, the district invited juniors and seniors from seven other universities to attend Friday's fair, including Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, Saginaw Valley State, Grand Valley State, Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan universities. Cleveland State University in Ohio was invited also.

Doris Hawkins, chairwoman of English at Otto Middle School, said the fair is a vital move for the district, especially if it's focused on recruiting minorities.

Hawkins, who is black, said she has had only one minority student-teacher in her classroom since the 1970s.

"My concern is I'm not passing the gauntlet to anyone of my race so I'm glad to see the move," she said.

I didn't realize Lansing was 60% minorities. I guess they'll just have to have 60% minority teachers ---that might take a little doing with the high dropout rates in the blacks and hispanics ---but as long as the schools aren't choosey, they can probably find enough to fill their quota.

So, in other words, Thomas is suggesting that we hire black teachers to appease the black students, Latino teachers to appease the Latino students, and Asian teachers to appease the Asian students. Or, in other words, set racial quotas in hiring teachers.

I didn't realize Lansing was 60% minorities

According to the census, Lansing is 65% White, 22% Black, 1% American Indian, 3% Asian, 10% Latino, 4.5% other, 4.6% two or more races.

Most of the Whites and probably a lot of Blacks and Latinos go to private schools. Can't blame them there.

Lansing is mostly a blue collar town, centered around GM, State Govt workers, Michigan State workers, and some students in the east end of the city.

Minority teachers hate ghettos too.

In Alaska, our ghettos are the native villages. Alcohol, drugs, violence, racism, sex child abuse rates of 75% (it's cultural), students all 5-6 years below grade level, no economy, no way out, no future, all on govt welfare (they actually think its their paycheck), just terrible social problems. Sad places with sad faces.

A few white teachers can handle it, but most don't last. When they finally get one native teacher out of 100's first thing they do is get out of the village as fast as they can. They won't raise their kids there either.

Last week up Kivalina, half the teachers up and quit; both native and white teachers. They closed the school down, except the gym so they could play basketball, important things you know. Guess they shot up their houses, killed and hung their dogs on posts, beat a few of them up. Rough in-bred crowd up Kivalina, but not all natives are animals; many real decent respectable people. But in the end, they all stick together against whitey or the USA. Even when they see their village being turned into a ghetto.

Are inner-city ghettos any different? Would you teach there if you were a minority?

Lansing isn't that bad compared to say a Flint, Detroit, or Saginaw, but it has their rough areas.

Although I'm here now for awhile, I'm a country guy myself. At this time, I don't plan on raising my family in the Lansing area, let alone have my kids attend a public school, period. City or suburb.

As for teaching, I wouldn't mind COACHING at a Lansing school, but I sure wouldn't want to be a teacher either in the city, or the suburbs. It's a tough job, and I wouldn't have the patience for it, especially with the administrators bowing to PC'ness all the time.

No offense meant to Mich. Got relatives near Taylor, been there a few times; way too crowded for me.

Most teacher job fairs have 5-6 jobs for each teacher. I'm not joking.

Thing is, teachers don't do it for the money; and most won't subject their own kids to all the violence and social problems often found in minority areas. They can find jobs pretty much anywhere.

The wife and I get 50 offers every summer to go to the bush (our ghettos). Can't subject our kids to all the violence. Wish them all the luck getting teachers, but all the talk about cultural insensitivity is for the most part just talk.

What an incredibly racist remark. Imagine the outcry if a white majority school district said they couldn't accept black teachers for this reason.

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