Beyond the Institution: An Informal Partnership Endeavored Toward Understanding and Addressing Black Teacher Recruitment and Retention

Abstract

Black teachers (BTs) are significantly underrepresented in the US teaching profession, yet there is still little focus on how to best hire, support, and retain them. This collaborative autoethnography documents our work in an urban characteristic school district and university in the southeastern US and how we leveraged our interpersonal and professional experiences with local educational and academic institutions to better understand the challenges associated with creating sustainable and systemic pathway and retention practices that prioritize BTs. We focus on the role of data and research in better understanding the localized experiences of BTs, share our vision for the Southeastern Black Teacher Network through an informal partnership, and offer recommendations for supporting BTs.

Introduction

Black Teachers (BTs) are significantly underrepresented in the US teaching profession (Farinde-Wu, 2018; Sleeter, 2013). Despite the low number of BTs in US schools, there is still little focus on how to best hire and support BTs (Carver-Thomas, 2018). While many cite the challenges related to hiring and retaining BTs (Carver-Thomas, 2018; Farinde et al., 2016; Gist, 2018), there have been few comprehensive initiatives aimed at creating and maintaining quality BT recruitment and induction programming (Achinstein et al., 2010; Ingersoll & May, 2011; Williams et al., 2020). Issues facing BTs (as well as Black students), have become all the more pressing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (Howard & Lyons, 2021; Kraft & Simon, 2020). Given these challenges, three Black women—Chonika, Brook, and Cindy—forged an informal partnership in an attempt to analyze barriers to BT recruitment and retention, strengthen the BT pipeline, create spaces to support new teachers, and help BTs recognize and pursue career advancement opportunities.

The impetus for doing this work was, in part, due to our proximity to a local district and teacher education program that lacked racial and social class diversity and did little to address these issues. These institutions' acquiescence to norms that reproduced racial disparities led us to move beyond institutional borders and our respective roles as a university professor, human resources professional, and elementary school assistant principal to envision a program geared toward hiring and supporting BTs. Our goals had been to help diversify the teaching force, raise Black students' academic achievement, and improve the quality of their school experiences as research shows that Black and non-Black students perform better when taught by BTs (Bristol, 2020; Madkins, 2011; Villegas & Jordan Irvine, 2010).

Using accounts of our work together, we share our experiences living and working in a small city in the southeastern United States as we collectively used our institutional knowledge and experiences to identify breakdowns across the university, school, and district that affected BT hiring and retention, leading to our vision for creating the Southeastern Black Teacher Network (SeBTN). This paper focuses on how local Black women—a professor, principal, district-level staff, and former teachers—conceptualized systemic breakdowns in hiring, retaining, and mentoring new BTs. This paper is guided by the following research question: How can Black women with influence across university, school, and district settings work together to identify and address local challenges to Black Teacher hiring and retention? Given this overarching question, this paper addresses: (1) The development of an informal partnership between Black women to identify systemic breakdowns in hiring and supporting BTs, (2) the need for focusing research and data collection efforts on understanding the local experiences of BTs in order to mitigate the challenges and institutional barriers BTs face, and (3) our vision for creating SeBTN.

Race and the Black Teacher Landscape

Critical race theory (CRT) scholars posit that mainstream institutions such as schools serve to perpetuate rather than mitigate racism (Crenshaw, 2011; Kohli, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Mills & Unsworth, 2018). This is evident through a variety of historical and current institutionalized practices. CRT scholars argue that significant efforts to address institutionalized racism are unlikely to be successful unless there is some form of interest convergence, whereby white people or the institution stands to gain something significant (Sleeter, 2017).

One historical example of interest convergence related to education is the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which argued that separate schools were inherently unequal. While many have heralded this ruling as a significant civil rights victory, others have been less optimistic (Arnez, 1978; Dingus, 2006). Today, schools are more segregated than they were before desegregation (Bell, 2007; Knaus, 2007; Lash & Ratcliffe, 2014; Townsend Walker, 2014). Brown v. Board led to BTs and administrators being fired and pushed out of the field by white administrators of desegregated schools (Madkins, 2011; Milner & Howard, 2004). As a part of the desegregation process, districts fired BTs and administrators for benign infractions, opening up spaces for less qualified white teachers whom they thought were better suited for working with white children in integrated schools (Arnez, 1978; Delpit, 2012; Milner & Howard, 2004).

The aforementioned example demonstrates the extent to which civil rights advancements are met with resistance. Advancing equity within educational institutions requires a shift in the balance of power—power that few white people are willing to concede. Although mainstream institutions articulate supporting principles of equity, they fail to actively engage policies and practices that produce equitable outcomes and are less inclined to do so if it means reallocating resources (Rector-Aranda, 2016), reflecting a lack of genuine commitment on the part of white educators and policymakers to diversifying the teaching force.

Over the last few years, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as yet another marker for BTs being disproportionately pushed out of schools due to dire circumstances (Gillani et al., 2022). Research shows that BT retention rates dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic as BTs were charged with dealing with some of the most challenging working conditions (Kraft & Simon, 2020), whereby their Black students’ families and communities were hardest hit by the pandemic (Erdman, 2020) and there were fewer resources and infrastructure available to switch to remote learning (Kraft et al., 2021) and to address the socioemotional challenges students faced (Horsford et al., 2021). This occurred even as BTs faced the brunt of the pandemic themselves by virtue of the pandemic’s impact on Black people.

CRT helps us understand how the historical roots of racial stratification continue to inform the workings of educational institutions. According to Lynn (2002), "…racism is not an aberration, but the natural consequence of an inherently unjust social structure that was organized to perpetuate racial inequalities and to advantage one racial grouping over another" (p. 120). Lynn (2002) goes on to argue that racial bias also shows up in how we think about and talk about BTs. He asserts that BTs are seen as inconsequential and invisible and that many educational research paradigms do not account for the social and political implications of teachers' racial and ethnic identities. The dearth of research literature on BTs further masks the importance of their presence and the benefits of a diverse teaching force.

In instances where there are efforts to diversify the teaching force, there is little done to understand the issues BTs face in schools (Bristol & Goings, 2019). Consequently, BTs lack relevant support that might aid in their development and retention in the profession. Support for BTs is necessary as they face unique challenges in schools—being perceived as under- or overqualified for the job, and only being useful for enforcing behavior and not for their pedagogical skills (Bristol & Goings, 2019). These issues are also exacerbated by BTs gender and lead to them being pigeonholed and feeling isolated in the work context (Bristol & Mentor, 2018).

The State and Local Context

Each year, the state produces a Teacher Preparation Report Card designed to assess the performance of educator preparation programs (EPPs) across the state. The report card highlights a variety of metrics intended to provide an overall picture of how well each institution is doing in preparing the next generation of educators. One of the metrics of success used to evaluate each institution centers around student enrollment and graduation demographics. In examining the 2017 report card data, students of color only accounted for 14.5% of students enrolled in teacher education programs statewide compared to 85.6% for white students (Tennessee State Board of Education, 2017). Districts across the state rely heavily on in-state institutions to staff their schools, yet the absence of teachers of color at these institutions further exacerbates the challenges associated with identifying and hiring BTs. BTs are consistently underrepresented in teacher education programs (Benson et al., 2021; Sleeter, 2017). These data can be even more polarizing when examining the representation of Black men in the profession. As Graham and Erwin (2011) note, Black men often view the teaching profession as overtly oppressive.

One major impediment to the recruitment of BTs to local EPPs is the state's mandate to limit the enrollment of out-of-state students. This means recruitment efforts in regions and communities outside of the state, where students of color are more heavily populated, can be limited. Adding to this barrier, the state's flagship institution had been in the media for multiple diversity-related issues, including campus visits by white supremacist organizations and the defunding of the university's Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) by the state legislature—a move that was precipitated by the ODI's efforts to create an inclusive campus climate for non-Christians and LGBTQ + individuals. These incidents serve as deterrents for students of color, who are drawn to culturally responsive and inclusive universities ("Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks," 2018). The state legislature's ability to use their power to undermine diversity and inclusion serves to support claims that US racism is endemic and permanent (Bell, 1993).

Beyond demographic characteristics of EPPs at the state level, there is an even greater disparity at the local level where the teaching force is about 94.8% white, while approximately 76.8% of students are white, reflecting a gross overrepresentation of white teachers and underrepresentation of BTs in the district (Disparities in Educational Outcomes Task Force, 2016). Black teachers accounted for 4.1% of the teachers in the district, and yet Black students accounted for 15.5% of students. In this highly segregated community, Black students who lived and attended schools in majority Black communities were almost exclusively being taught by white teachers.

In examining the very small number of EPPs that are finding success in attracting and retaining educators of color, alternative pathway programs significantly outperform their traditional counterparts (Madkins, 2011). Alternative pathways seem to attract potential BTs who are career changers (Humphrey & Wexler, 2007) and those interested in giving back to the community (Chin & Young, 2007). Despite their ability to attract diverse teachers who are interested in educational equity, the fidelity of these programs’ commitment to equity has warranted critique. Alternative pathway programs like Teach for America and others provide a temporary solution to teacher shortages and and are less effective in boosting student achievement (Achinstein et al., 2010; Brooks & Greene, 2013; Donaldson, 2008; Heilig & Jez, 2010; Laczko-Keer & Berliner, 2022).

The absence of inclusive and equitable school cultures often has implications for student achievement and performance. Students of color, students with disabilities, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students, when compared to majority peers, disproportionately have less access to and placement in gifted programs, disproportionate rates of disciplinary sanctions, and lower standardized test scores (Ford et al., 2011; Klingner et al., 2005; McGrew, 2008; Rector-Aranda, 2016). When examining in and out-of-school suspensions and expulsion rates from the Lanham School District, these student groups were consistently and disproportionately represented (Disparities in Educational Outcomes Task Force, 2016). However, research indicates that as the number of BTs increases within a school, the rates of Black student discipline decreases, and academic achievement increases—highlighting the impact of BTs on student performance and achievement (Williams et al., 2020). Additionally, scholars argue that having Black teachers also benefits white students (Egalite et al., 2015) or that Black teachers are equally as effective in teaching white students as white teachers (Gershenson et al., 2018).

Disparities in academic achievement and disciplinary sanctions caused concerns for local stakeholders who developed a taskforce dedicated to researching district disparities within Lanham School District. As a by product of the taskforce's findings, the district committed almost $900,000 to cultural competency training for all district employees over five years. However, district leadership simultaneously (1) dismantled math and science magnet programs that almost exclusively served students of color and low-income families, (2) defunded a university partnership program that had been a primary pipeline for developing and placing Black principals in local schools, and (3) eliminated financial support for a pipeline program designed to provide college access and funding support for students of color. It was surmised that funds saved from cutting these programs would have been used to support a controversial new middle school being built in a majority white section of town while schools in Black and Brown neighborhoods remained overcrowded and outdated. Beyond pressure from local grassroots organizations to address these issues, few institutionally driven efforts addressed racial disparities. This level of apathy and complacency was reflective of local politics and culture.

Methods and Data Collection

We draw on CRT both as a conceptual framework and methodological tool, utilizing our own stories in the form of narratives and collaborative autoethnographic accounts to inform data collection and analysis. According to CRT, storytelling like “[a]utoethnography [has the] ability to connect personal narrative with wider issues of race, culture, identity and the socio-political meanings that undergird these constructs” (Jennings, 2014, p. 215). Collaborative autoethnography allows us to draw on our collective stories and supports an interactive, dialogic process by which multiple researchers, who are full members of the research project and co-authors of published writing, work together to document and analyze particular phenomena (Chang et al., 2013). Collaborative autoethnography diverges from autoethnography in that participants can discuss and interrogate ideas with one another as a form of triangulation. According to Ngunrjiri et al. (2010), "…autoethnography is a qualitative research method that utilizes data about self and context to gain an understanding of the connectivity between self and others within the same context" (p. 2). Additionally, autoethnography is "qualitative, self-focused, and context-conscious" (p. 2).

While some scholars argue that truly robust research must be objective, others recognize that it is impossible to separate research and scholarship from the researcher's unique social identities and experiences (Ellis & Bochner, 2003; Ngunjiri et al., 2010). CRT scholars also call upon individuals to share their stories—or counternarratives—as a means of pushing back against the mainstream ideology that renders invisible or distorts the realities of minoritized groups (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). In alignment with CRT research and methods, rather than attempting to distance ourselves from our research and realities, we unapologetically embraced a reflexive examination of our lived experiences. As Black women, who lived and worked in the Lanham community, our positionalities gave us a unique contextual experience informed by our identities. The relationship between self and context, captured by storytelling, shapes how and why we support the hiring and development of BTs and allows us to tell the story of this process even in the absence of other researchers to determine whether this work is worthy of interrogation. If we do not tell our story, who will?

In determining a strategy for addressing BT recruitment and retention issues, we met weekly to discuss ideas and plan solutions. The excerpts shared in this paper reflect co-constructed and reconstructed conversations beginning with conversations we had sporadically over two years and discussions with all three authors during our weekly meetings over three months. Weekly meetings mostly took place in person at a local restaurant or over the phone. We documented our work together through notetaking and used the most prominent themes in our conversations to determine the most significant challenges with hiring locally. In determining which themes to share in this paper, we decided to use an "…organic, intuitive approach to meaning making" (Chang, 2013, p. 116). We reviewed notes recounting our experiences and discussions, reviewed videos of school board meetings, and examined artifacts like emails. We also engaged in meaning-making by determining how these themes worked together to tell a more holistic story about the local context.

According to Chang (2013), autoethnographic work is sensitive. It places the ideas and emotions of individuals in plain sight for others to examine and consume. As a result, we have chosen not to identify the speaker by name in some cases to allow for a relative degree of protection of our identities, recognizing that we tend to be ideological outliers in a highly conservative political and majority white community. Martinez and Anderson (2015) assert that the personal is always political. Our personal experiences and positionalities as Black women who have attained a certain level of career success in majority white spaces put us in a unique and vulnerable position—our mere existence is political.

Our Journeys to this Place: Creating a Space for Us Designed by Us

In what follows, we share how we came to our work within the field of education, highlight the basis of our interest in issues of race and equity within the field, and the need for districts to be intentional about hiring and keeping BTs. Next, we explore ways the Lanham context shaped the experiences of BTs and our observations of how teachers tended to cope with their minoritized status in school spaces. We explore the insular nature of local hiring practices, which effectively restricts the teacher candidate pool to certain white teachers. Then, we share the inconsistencies and breakdowns in data collection processes and the importance of collecting, analyzing, and addressing data about the BTs' experiences. Finally, we draw on previously identified issues to describe our work building the SeBTN and our eventual group separation.

Chonika

I grew up in New York City and attended New York City Public Schools from K-12. During that time, I can recall having only two BTs and seeing another two or three in school buildings throughout my education. Despite my lack of exposure to BT role models in schools, the most influential teacher in my life was my mother, a Jamaican immigrant who had been a stay-at-home mom until my second-grade year and worked diligently to provide me with academic learning opportunities at home. Early learning experiences with my mother taught me the importance of education and sparked my interest in teaching and learning. It also gave me a template for modeling teaching skills, so much so that I opened a summer school on my front porch when I was about seven years old and invited neighborhood children to attend.

My choice to become a teacher stemmed from my mother's example, my love for teaching and learning, and my desire to see Black and Brown children reach their full potential in an educational system that was not designed for their success. I went on to study elementary education at a historically white institution (HWI), where there was little curricular emphasis on racial and ethnic diversity. Rather than succumb to a race-neutral curriculum, I pursued undergraduate research opportunities and course electives that centered race and equity and ultimately created my path—one that would help prepare me to teach Black children. After teaching in Title I schools for several years, I pursued graduate studies to broaden my impact on Black education. Currently, I am a teacher education professor in the southeast region of the US. I work with mostly white women to help them recognize the impact of racial inequities and help them cultivate identities as anti-racist teachers and educational activists. Additionally, I lead community programming for Black children that center their identities and cultural practices.

Brook

The daughter of a local and state school board member, granddaughter of a college president, and a lifelong kindergarten teacher, I understood the importance of education at an early age. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, I grew up attending public schools that adequately reflected the broader demographics of my community. From there, I attended a string of HWIs, where I became more acutely aware of how academic disparities in public education play themselves out in all areas of our lives. After working in consulting for almost 10 years, I relocated to the southeast and to work with a large school district.

As a Black woman, I have always worked consciously and unconsciously to strategically manage the version of myself that I present at work. I am deeply familiar with the tropes commonly associated with professional Black women—and learned very early on in my professional life to navigate the risks of being typecast as stereotypically harsh, angry, or aggressive—while also needing to ensure my voice is heard and my ideas considered.

The burden of needing to self-present in a way that is most palatable and appealing to others can weigh heavy—a weight that is only matched by the pressure of giving voice to the issues, concerns, and needs of students and educators of color. As one of very few, and often the only, woman of color with a seat at key decision-making tables, I view advocating and elevating the needs of minoritized communities as a responsibility—to myself and to those who are counting on me. All students deserve to see themselves reflected in their academic environments—and addressing the systemic barriers to entry and advancement for educators of color within the field is a critical step in providing this access and opportunity for all.

Cindy

I always wanted to be a teacher. Growing up in Chicago, my favorite teacher was Sydney Burwell. Mrs. Burwell was strong, intelligent, hardworking, and believed in her students' ability to learn. Mrs. Burwell made sure we had the opportunity to be successful with every task put before us. We were forced to think outside the box, be creative in our thinking, and be proud to be Black. She is the reason I wanted to become a teacher.

Growing up, I was fortunate to have BTs to admire. These teachers intentionally communicated that we were talented, had value, and could do anything we wanted. These teachers modeled hard work, professionalism, and a love for teaching and learning.

When my daughter started her educational journey, I noticed the lack of diversity in Lanham County Schools (she had only one BT K-12). When I began teaching, I was one of two BTs at the Title 1 school. As I advanced in my career, I was one of only a handful of Black instructional coaches in the district and became one of a disproportionately low number of Black elementary administrators. The need for strategic recruitment, retention, and advancement of Black educators in Lanham County Schools became increasingly clear. I have felt sense of responsibility for making sure that students of color have the experience of learning from teachers who look like them.

Intentionality is a Must: Examining Barriers to Hiring and Retaining Black Teachers

Our stories highlight our pathways to the field of education and as co-visionaries of the SeBTN. Part of what has driven our focus on the need to hire and retain BTs is related to the examples set forth by formal and informal educators in our lives and our experiences as Black women. We met through professional networks and existing partnerships between Lanham School District and our local university. We were frequently the only Black people present in many of those meetings, which ultimately sparked our desire to connect. Inevitably, our conversations led us to discuss the absence of other BT candidates, teachers, and administrators in the spaces we occupy as education professionals. During our first meeting as a group, Cindy and Chonika shared with Brook how we connected:

Chonika: As a part of my diversity work with the Lanham district, I suggested that principals receive training on addressing issues of equity in their school. Teachers will not get on board if they do not sense they have support from their administrators.

Cindy: They added cultural competency training to the Principals' Institute this year, but you could scan the room of administrators and see the lack of diversity. There were two, or maybe three or four Black people in the room.

Chonika: We made our way over to each other during the break to chat and talked about the lack of diversity in the room. I mean, if we don't have a diverse teacher education program, we won't have diverse teachers, and if we don't have diverse teachers, we won't have diverse administrators. It's a vicious cycle.

Cindy: That's when we agreed to meet to brainstorm ideas.

Chonika: I told Cindy I had already started the conversation with you, Brook, and we should all get together to talk.

Our interest in BTs is directly related to our experiences living in a community that frequently missed the mark when it came to prioritizing the needs of those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Given the context of Lanham, most educators and policymakers have not had the formative experiences that would help them recognize the need for a diverse teaching force. Furthermore, diversifying the teaching force does little to benefit the white mainstream. As far as many mainstream policymakers and educators are concerned, the system is not broken, and hence there is no need to fix it. In a televised and public forum and in response to a presentation on the pervasiveness of inequities and racial disparities in Lanham County Schools, a prominent policymaker noted:

"I've never witnessed an example of racism in Lanham County Schools in all the decades I've been a part of this community."

This sentiment was shared in a public, televised forum, and suggested that because they had not personally witnessed or experienced racism (as a white person), then it simply could not be happening. In making this statement, they essentially dismissed not only the data and research being presented (by a Black woman), but also devalued the perspectives and personal experiences of the presenter, students, and educators of color in Lanham County as well as the taskforce's efforts to research the districts' disparities. This exchange is indicative of the mindsets that impede efforts to prioritize the recruitment and advancement of Black educators.

Homegrown vs. Grow Your Own

I have never lived in a place that is so incestuous. At the university, the vast majority of students are from Lanham or this state. The same is true for staff; and, in some cases, faculty who attended the university and now work for the university. Even Ph.D. students come to the university to get a doctorate and are unwilling to leave Lanham to find work. I mean, there are only so many university jobs in the area! In institutions all across the city, they hire people who were born and raised in Lanham—people who have had similar experiences and share similar backgrounds and values. It is a major impediment to any significant growth for the community.

Many scholars and practitioners have attested to the benefits of growing the teaching force by hiring teachers who live in and are invested in the local community as a viable pathway towards diversifying the teaching force and cultivating culturally competent teachers (Carver-Thomas, 2018; Gist, 2021; Villegas & Davis, 2007). "Grow Your Own" programs require an intentional effort to cultivate and nurture educators with a variety of diverse lived and educational experiences (Madkins, 2011). On the other hand, those we have labeled as homegrown teachers are germane to the local region and require little effort to cultivate. Homegrown teachers are given priority, in part, because they exist in excess, are adaptable and amenable to the local context, and bring an inherent sense of familiarity.

In Lanham, those tasked with hiring tended to prefer teachers who were homegrown—individuals from the community and/or who attended college in Lanham. There seemed to be very little interest in the potential value outsiders might bring to the table. The idea that a diverse workforce (across race, class, gender, religion, etc.) encourages growth and fosters creativity isn’t a novel one (Denson & Chang, 2009). However, the overarching Lanham community seemed deeply committed to maintaining a historical identity rooted in ‘tradition,’ southern charm, the good ol’ days, and a devoutly faith-based conservative way of life that often rejects diversity and inclusivity. The exclusion of outsiders was one of many ways the community sought to protect and preserve their shared cultural values.

The work of Engel and Cannata (2015) support our findings as they argue that “the geography of teacher labor markets and the decision-making process on the part of districts, schools, and teachers” (p. 84) can often reinforce inequities in school districts. Similarly, Reininger (2012), found that “the local nature of the labor force and the differential rates of graduation and production of teachers from traditionally hard-to-staff schools are reinforcing existing deficits of local teacher labor supply” (p. 127). This means that there must be more intentional efforts to specifically recruit racially minoritized teachers from local communities, but districts must also provide incentives for making teaching in communities like Lanham attractive to teachers from other, and more diverse, areas of the country.

The Exclusive Homegrown Track to Teacher Advancement

I attended college in Lanham, and subsequently completed my student teaching at schools in the Lanham School District. After graduation, I was approached and offered a teaching position by the principal of the school where I was placed for my clinical experience. When I asked about the application and interview process, I was told, "You don't need to interview, you don't even need to apply, I'll just send your name downtown if you want the job." As a school level administrator, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with other administrators who shed light on the ease of simply hiring teacher candidates once they graduate, because they can "train" and "mold" these teachers to their liking and then "hire them on the spot as soon as a position opens up." Given the absence of students of color currently enrolled in our local institutions, this common practice for identifying and hiring new teachers perpetuates the lack of diversity reflected in our district's teaching staff.

Principals not only have the autonomy to handpick students exclusively from local EPPs, these teachers often go on to become administrators and district-level staff. This approach to staffing creates operational and infrastructural norms that make it very challenging (in practice) to diversify the teaching force. When key district level positions are staffed with former school administrators, who have experience with school-level leadership but who often lack the industry-specific expertise needed to successfully lead district-level initiatives—particularly in key talent management areas like human resources, recruitment, retention, leadership, professional and talent development—the school district ultimately suffers. The absence of expertise in the aforementioned areas exacerbated the detrimental effects of 'promote from within' strategies and hindered possibilities for utilizing other highly relational techniques for identifying, attracting, and hiring talent. For districts lacking educator diversity, the ‘promote and advance from within strategy’ limits the visibility of BTs and compromises the district's ability to integrate and implement strategic initiatives focused on the unique needs of BTs.

Lanham's decentralized hiring model allowed principals autonomy to identify potential hires. School-level administrators played a very integral role in the hiring, retention, support, and advancement of BTs. Fundamentally, administrators have a responsibility to the communities they serve, to provide students with highly effective teaching staff that adequately reflects the community (Dee, 2004, 2005; Egalite et al., 2015). Unfortunately, recruitment efforts occurred at the district level and hiring at the school level, yet there was no mechanism to ensure alignment between district- and school-level hiring priorities.

Being Our Own Advocates: Interpersonal Identity Issues for Black Teachers

Here, it seems like everyone knows their role and plays their part. It's strange. It seems like many Black people don't want to ruffle feathers, so they just go along to get along. That's new for me, I don't understand it, but I see it at all levels. There is a reluctance to overtly address racial issues.

While complacency on issues of race and inequity seem to be the norm among white people, the same was also true for many BTs we encountered. As transplants from more ethnically and culturally diverse environments, we were often surprised by what we perceived as acquiescence to one's status as a second-class community member. There seemed to be a cultural norm among some Black colleagues, to place an emphasis on, and even prioritize white people's comfort—often to their own detriment. This was also observed in college classrooms with pre-service teachers where Chonika facilitated discussions on race and equity: students of color were often cautious about contributing their ideas or challenging the problematic perspectives of their majority peers.

In addition to the many challenges associated with being one of few BIPOCs in their schools, BTs with strong racial identities also had to contend with feelings of isolation. These feelings were often compounded by interactions with other BTs for whom race, culture and/or ethnic identity were not salient aspects of their identities, and/or those who simply preferred to blend in rather than draw attention to their own race and ethnicity. To that end, individuals for whom race or ethnicity was not an enduring component of their identity were less likely to share culturally driven interests or experiences with individuals for whom race, or ethnicity was a central aspect of their identity. This nuance, in many instances, eliminated opportunities to connect on the basis of shared lived and cultural experiences, and further exacerbated feelings of social isolation.

In addition to BTs' relational challenges, BTs also struggled to navigate school environments where colleagues and administrators had limited professional and personal interactions with BIPOCs. In many instances, these individuals' frames of reference were limited to media representations, common stereotypes, or their experiences with other BTs in the building. The limited exposure often perpetuated beliefs about communities of color being a monolith, and subsequently negatively and inaccurately informed how colleagues and administrators interacted with BTs. The combination of these interactions can have a compounding effect on BT experiences.

Using Data to Help Understand and Support Black Teachers

Chonika: Keeping BTs feels like such an uphill battle. Getting them is one issue but keeping them is another. Is there data available on why teachers of color leave Lanham? Does anyone even notice when they're gone? This information could be really insightful in helping to better understand where we're missing the mark on meeting BTs' needs.

Brook: Some schools and administrators conduct formal or informal exit interviews when teachers leave. However, most of the feedback and insights gleaned from these conversations never make its way back to the district level. Subsequently, visibility into the systemic and institutional barriers faced by teachers of color is ad hoc, making it challenging for district leaders to systematically monitor, document, and advocate for changes that might positively alter how other educators of color experience and navigate their school communities.

Cultivating district-level initiatives focused on the hiring and support of Black educators is rooted in the ability to identify, highlight, and track data that sheds light on the representation and experiences of BTs within the district. Strategic data collection initiatives should be addressed at three critical points in an educator’s life cycle with the district: pre-employment, employment, and post-employment. During the application process, applicants should be asked to provide demographic information in order to ensure the district is able to track the correlation between applicant diversity and new hire diversity with fidelity. These data would also allow the district to be more intentional in balancing staffing needs with the prioritization of demographic representation across the district, when determining teacher placements. The absence of proper systems and processes for annual district-wide data collection, organization, and analysis, allows districts to more easily absolve themselves of responsibility when it comes to recruiting and retaining BTs.

For some districts, self-report employee demographic data has not always been a required component of the application process. Applicant data is often used to anchor the new employee files of hired candidates, and the absence of demographic data during the application process can subsequently compromise district-wide employee data. The absence of these data means districts may rely solely on anecdotal data—which may or may not highlight the depth or scale of the need for dedicated resources and attention to be allocated toward recruitment and retention efforts. District-level initiatives often prioritize recruitment efforts, leaving current or active BTs feeling voiceless and excluded—minimizing the importance of a comprehensive retention strategy for new and existing educators within the district. Beyond systematic demographic data collection, providing opportunities for BTs to confidentially provide insights into their experiences at work can be influential in identifying focus for strategic retention efforts. The fidelity of these efforts is predicated on the transparency, confidentiality, and a strategic emphasis on providing visibility and clarity around the systems, processes, and approaches for leveraging the data being collected. One of the biggest mistakes districts can make is asking BTs to share their experiences, with no plan for how that information will be used or mobilized into action.

Focus groups, feedback sessions, and roundtable discussions are often leveraged as mechanisms for gathering insight and feedback from BTs. These opportunities for sharing, however, are often reactionary and are facilitated in a way that may not always engender a true sense of transparency and authenticity. Whether it is a strategic planning process or a research study, cultivating opportunities for BIPOC educators to come together, and collectively share their unique experiences and challenges, without a clearly defined and explicitly outlined accountability structure, can be far more harmful than never having asked at all. For many, speaking life to and sharing the challenges and struggles faced as a BT can be a very vulnerable experience, and when people are vulnerable, there is an unspoken expectation that the discomfort and vulnerability will bring about change.

Fear and founded distrust often stifle data collection efforts and initiatives. The processes used to gather data from BTs often minimizes the imperative need for anonymity and confidentiality. BTs often have very valid fears and concerns about the negative byproducts of attempts to candidly and authentically share their experiences. As such, collecting data with this population can often be challenging, particularly when data collection efforts have been previously mishandled and/or where transparency about the process has been limited. The impact of mishandling data collection efforts often outlives the BTs who experienced them and can subsequently stifle any long-term and systematic efforts to engage with BTs.

Finally, some of the most important data that districts can collect is post-employment data from BTs leaving the district (voluntarily or otherwise). The implementation of a formal district-level exit interview process is a critical data collection opportunity, as teachers leaving the district are often more likely to provide the transparent and authentic qualitative insight needed to best understand and unpack the complex and often challenging experiences faced by Black educators.

Black Women’s Visions for the SeBTN

Two major impediments to the work of human resources officials in the Lanham School District centered around a lack of intentionality in support of BTs and the absence of established institutional processes for data collection and management by which decisions could be made to assess the needs of and support BTs. Similar gaps were also evident at the university level related to attracting and retaining students of color in the teacher education program. Using our understanding of current systemic and institutional challenges and our interest in creating spaces to develop and support BTs, we formed the SeBTN. What we describe below are the initial stages of SeBTN planning, focused on the following three pillars: (1) creating a space for BTs to engage in mentorship, collaboration, and support; (2) identifying clear and attainable pathways to career advancement for BTs; and (3) engaging in educational advocacy and community activism.

Safe and Supportive Spaces: A Professional, Social, and Emotional Imperative for BTs

As noted by Beverly Daniel Tatum (2003) in the book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, the normalization of whiteness obscures the fact that social supports and networks are inherently institutionalized structures for white people who occupy majority white spaces. However, these support networks must be developed and cultivated for BTs who occupy majority white spaces to decrease feelings of isolation and increase BT retention (Bristol & Goings, 2019; Mosely, 2018). This is particularly true for educators in places like Lanham, where dedicated spaces for BIPOCs in majority white contexts run counter to pervasive and dominant cultural practices, and thus may lead to the purported discomfort of white colleagues. Interestingly, it may also lead to the discomfort of Black educators who historically have not had their own dedicated spaces, and thus have attempted to placate white colleagues by avoiding these spaces, for fear of how it might be viewed.

Scholars have noted the importance of mentorship programs for Black teachers (Bristol & Goings, 2019). In developing a mentorship model for BTs, we wanted to ensure horizontal and vertical relationships to provide BTs with opportunities to connect with peers across the district with varying years of experience, types of expertise, educational levels, and grade/subject matter expertise. As a group, we determined that the SeBTN members would meet quarterly for professional development and networking opportunities guided by members’ interests. In addition to quarterly meetings, BTs would engage in special interest groups focused on specific aspects of the teaching experience and independent mentor–mentee meetings and outings.

Bringing together this group of educators provides an opportunity to collect qualitative and quantitative data aimed at better understanding Black educators' needs while also positioning the organization to address the absence of a more formal data collection process at the district level. Collecting data outside of the official district context and within the context of a supportive environment better positions teachers to be more transparent about their needs and experiences, without fear of repercussions. The structure of the mentorship program is one that centers and prioritizes the development of trust through meaningful interpersonal interactions and relationships—all of which are essential to cultivating spaces where BTs can be fully present, authentic and when needed, vulnerable.

SeBTN mentors must undergo an application and interview process aimed at identifying leaders with diverse professional experiences and the characteristics and traits of strong mentors. One of the core initiatives of the SeBTN is to create mentorship opportunities for educators as a point of support and provide guidance around some of the tacit rules about navigating the district. In addition to SeBTN mentors, we recognize that access to a mentor within the same school building could serve as a critical resource for BTs as they navigate tacit rules related to internal operational procedures, preferences, and nuances of their school. The in-school mentor role can be filled by another person of color or white ally when other Black teachers are not available. The expectation is for selected mentors to demonstrate strong communication skills and be committed to providing professional support and sharing resources.

Research has shown that BTs are particularly drawn to education as a means of leveling the playing field and addressing issues of race and equity in schools (Achinstein et al., 2010; Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Duncan, 2018). However, most teachers never receive official training on how to engage in culturally responsive teaching and rely almost exclusively on their own experiences and intuition (Achinstein et al., 2010). As a result, we find it imperative for the SeBTN to support mentors in working with mentees to help develop their proficiency as culturally responsive and anti-racist teachers. Our goal is for SeBTN educators to recognize the importance of sharing the contributions and history of BIPOCs while making connections to other required curricular content and pushing back against policies that lead to inequitable consequences for minoritized students. CRT scholars assert that whiteness functions as property and extends the power of white people to exclude others from representation and participation (Ladson-Billings, 1998). This can be seen in Black and Brown exclusion from school curriculum or discipline policies that have a disproportionate and negative impacts on BIPOC students. Thus, it is imperative that we center curriculum and discipline policies in our work with the SeBTN.

The role of BTs is not to merely exist as vessels of mainstream practices, values, and dispositions. SeBTN teachers must examine their racial identities, develop critical consciousness, and learn how to stand firm in their identities and values even within potentially hostile school climates. The role of the SeBTN is to support teachers in that work and ensure that they know what rights and protections exist as they make choices about how to engage in contested work.

Our goal for teacher support and mentorship through SeBTN is to directly impact the students they serve, particularly students of color, by helping students develop confidence and self-love. We also want to ensure that BIPOC students see themselves in the curriculum and recognize that formal education can broaden their access to opportunities and life choices. Beginning at the middle-school level, the SeBTN would work with Black students and other students of color to introduce them to the various career options within education in partnership with the local teacher education program. The purpose of this is to create a pipeline into the teacher education program and resultantly the teaching profession.

In reviewing literature on teacher preparation programs, there is a noticeable absence related to teacher self-care (Jennings et al., 2017; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Encouraging self-care is essential for BTs who generally work in schools where students have more intense needs (Richards, 2012) or in spaces where they must regularly deal with racial microaggressions on the part of white colleagues (Rector-Aranda, 2016), leading to teacher stress and burnout (Duncan, 2018). Any program built around supporting BTs must also center self-care and encourage a balanced and healthy lifestyle. This also includes creating opportunities to recognize and celebrate BTs' accomplishments and contributions.

Pathways to Career Advancement

To support the advancement of BTs, we must be intentional in our efforts to help teachers navigate obscure pathways for growth and professional development. Identifying school- and district-level opportunities for BTs to serve in leadership roles and to leverage and share their talents with peers are critical steps in keeping these teachers engaged in the work and invested in the district. If BTs believe that their contributions are valued and see an investment in their professional growth and development, they are, in turn, more likely to be committed to their students, the school, and the district.

While the SeBTN can work to share opportunities and routes members have taken to career advancement, there must also be support and buy-in at the school and district levels. The SeBTN can work to provide professional development opportunities to district- and school-level administrators and highlight their role in helping BTs navigate pathways toward advancement. Career advancement includes experiencing success in the classroom, receiving additional training to hone their craft as educators, and moving into roles outside of the classroom to lead grade level teams, coach other teachers, and become administrators or policymakers.

Administrators must also learn to name race and recognize that members of minoritized groups have unique experiences in majority white spaces (Bristol & Goings, 2019). Just as teachers should engage in culturally sensitive practices, the same expectation is true of administrators who should recognize that they play an essential role in making the school climate a hospitable one in which BTs can thrive.

Supporting BTs can and should take on many forms. Beginning of the year conferences should set the stage for behavioral and performance expectations. This allows the administrator an opportunity to state work hours and responsibilities beyond the classroom (e.g., arrival/dismissal duties, parent contact, professional development expectations, etc.). This conference also provides an opportunity for the administrator and teacher to discuss expectations for mentorship and support and for the administrator to learn about the resources provided by the SeBTN.

For BTs to feel included in their new environment, building-level leadership has to be intentional about fostering relationships between new BTs and the seasoned staff as soon as the teacher is hired. The building-level leadership should have a system in place that welcomes the BTs into the building with a brief bio of the teacher (including previous teaching experience, hometown, family, etc.) and encourage the staff as a whole to welcome the teacher.

I have seen instances where teachers go out for lunch on professional development days and invite everyone except the Person of Color on their team. It happens all the time.

The grade-level team should also be encouraged to include the teacher in all activities, whether they are professional or social, barring any major relational challenges. Staff meetings such as professional learning communities, planning meetings, and other gatherings should also support the BTs in building relationships with their peers. Periodic check-in with the BTs can also ensure that BTs have what is needed and feel comfortable within the building. These check-ins also can help foster a positive relationship between the administrator and the BTs.

Educational Advocacy and Community Activism

In our experience, any significant institutional changes within the Lanham district in support of minoritized communities have come from pressure being placed on the school board and other officials by grassroots organizations. Support for BTs cannot occur in a vacuum without any attention to institutional policies and practices. In addition to creating mentorship opportunities for BTs, the SeBTN has to be strategic about petitioning the district to create the infrastructure necessary to hire, support, and retain BTs, using data we have collected as leverage in advocating for the needs of BTs.

Additionally, the SeBTN is uniquely positioned to help create collaborative partnership opportunities. In examining what we know about the career drivers and professional motivators for the next generation of educators (Generation Z), the opportunity exists for districts' human resource offices, EPPs, and graduate programs to explore opportunities for strategic, collaborative hiring efforts.

Generation Z was described by Forbes (2016) as prioritizing the value of diversity and social justice issues within a very globalized context. They have been raised to learn and work in groups and teams and are passionate about working for the collective and greater good for all. Black women teachers are especially drawn to social justice issues related to underserved students (Farinde-Wu, 2018). With this in mind, districts and educator preparation programs have the opportunity to leverage social justice issues by presenting careers in education as a form of advocacy. Reframing the role of teachers as change agents and advocates for public education has the potential to attract students from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and majors who may not have initially considered teaching as a profession. This approach is arguably a part of the appeal of alternative pathway programs like Teach for America and Common Ground, and can be used to attract students with non-traditional majors into the field of education and highlights an opportunity for districts and graduate programs to partner with one another in attracting and employing more Black educators.

One such example would include cultivating a university and district partnership focused on attracting Black and Latinx teacher candidates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions to cities and communities where BTs are consistently underrepresented. To combat the competition that many alternative pathway programs offer (e.g., paid post-secondary degree, loan forgiveness, etc.), partnering with a reputable and compelling university partner is critical. The ability to leverage the brand and reputation of the university is important, but so is financial support for tuition, books, living expenses, and other educational materials. Providing BTs with an opportunity to secure a post-secondary degree from a desirable institution, while covering the prohibitive costs associated with graduate work, demonstrates a legitimate and genuine level of interest in attracting more BTs to an area where they are significantly underrepresented.

These collaborative partnerships can be especially beneficial when underlying issues (e.g., competitive salary and benefits) are too large to tackle. The allocation of district and institutional dollars to support this work is critical to the success of this type of partnership and helps to develop a pipeline of BTs for the district. Requiring teachers to serve in the partnering district for a minimum service term also can help improve BT retention. However, the success of this type of partnership is also largely contingent upon district-level commitment to ensuring that their school environments and school-based leaders reflect cultural competence and understand what it means to cultivate an inclusive work environment.

Conclusions and Implications

Despite the challenges associated with recruiting and hiring BTs, the current paradigm can be shifted with intentionality and strategic efforts focused on attracting, retaining, and supporting BTs. Efforts to expand recruitment initiatives for Black educators must be rooted in a fundamental acknowledgment that their experiences as educators are different from those of their peers—particularly when they are one of few or the only ones in their schools. Efforts to retain and support teachers must facilitate opportunities for BIPOC teachers to convene (formally and informally) to share their stories and experiences.

This need for support has been exacerbated further by the COVID-19 pandemic as Black teachers and students face heightened disenfranchisement. Black teachers, who were already tasked with taking on “additional roles including coach, mentor, role model, disciplinarian, and [responsibilities] for communicating with families of students of color” (Stewart & Sawko, 2022, p. 2) must also deal with the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on their Black students, such as wider gaps in student learning, and increases in behavioral and socioemotional challenges (Walker et al., 2022). We need targeted interventions to deal with the peculiarities of being a Black teacher, in particular.

Mentorship opportunities play a critical role in helping BTs successfully navigate the challenges of being a BT in a majority white profession. Leveraging the experiences of veteran BTs, who have successfully navigated the distinct challenges and barriers associated with professional advancement, new teachers can be better provided with the motivation and support required for long-term professional growth. Additionally, BTs bring the diversity of their lived experiences to their work, which, in turn, can and should be used to help shed light on the institutional, systemic, and cultural barriers that students and Black families face in the broader school community, which can bolster relationships between the school and the community (Villegas et al., 2012).

In our vision for the SeBTN, we attempted to address some of the challenges we have identified through our work with local institutions and our experiences living and working in the Lanham community. The SeBTN sought to address the lack of intentionality exhibited by local stakeholders as it relates to the hiring, support, and retention of BTs and views the creation of a data collection system intent on tracking and understanding the experiences of BTs as central to developing the necessary programs to grow and maintain the BT population.

As we moved forward with conceptualizing the SeBTN, we recognized that this work falls outside the scope of our regular work duties. This limits our ability to commit the time and resources necessary to have the most impact. However, we understan the need to build capacity by bringing in other leaders to share the organization's responsibility and lead programming.

While formal institutions often abdicate their responsibility to engage fully in equity and diversity work, BIPOCs are often left to pick up the slack, which has emotional, psychological, and physical costs for them (Duncan, 2018). However, we hope that by building partnerships and garnering community support, the collective work will help lighten the load. Moreover, we recognize that additional research is needed to help us determine the effectiveness of various models for working with, within, and around mainstream institutions charged with training, hiring, and advancing teachers. This also reinforces the importance of ensuring diverse professional spaces. As our work indicates, people with particular experiences, interests, and values are uniquely positioned to think innovatively about strategies for research and practice that can shift the paradigm of inequity and move us toward a more equitable and accessible teaching workforce.

The reality that it took three Black women, who met serendipitously, to analyze and work toward addressing these issues, shows why there is a need for Black educators who serve as classroom teachers and those who make their way through the educator pipeline into areas like school-level administration, district-level administration, and teacher education. However, shifts in our own employment and our search for more rewarding and hospitable work environments for ourselves have obstructed the implementation of our vision for the SeBTN. Despite these barriers, our ability to strategize beyond the walls of our respective institutions has helped us to influence what happens within those walls. For example, the Lanham district invited Cindy to become a member of the inaugural cohort of Lanham County educators who participated in the statewide Educators of Color Alliance—a one-year program designed to inform and empower local professionals. The program provides new skills, networking opportunities, growth experiences, and community with other BIPOC educators. Cindy also transitioned to a new role at the district level in the Department of School Culture where she organizes district-wide training to support teachers in developing strategies to reduce referrals and suspensions that disproportionately affect Black students. We recognize that we cannot wait for white educators and administrators to meet the needs of BTs. Recruiting and retaining Black teachers will require multiple, creative, and strategic moves. Working in informal spaces, outside of mainstream institutions, and with the unique perspectives of individuals situated in various spaces across the education pipeline (Bristol & Goings, 2019), is one way to get us closer to our goal of a more diverse, inclusive, and supported teacher workforce.