Diverse Educator Milestones and Pathways
Did you know?
The persistence of a diverse workforce is critical to transforming educational systems. Student enrollment data from our region reveals approximately 55% are students of color, while only 15.6% of teachers identify as Educators of Color (OSPI data).
Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD) is committed to recruiting, supporting, and retaining a diverse workforce reflective of the students and communities we serve and working collaboratively with our Educators of Color, system partners, and communities to create an ecosystem that attracts and nourishes diverse educators so that they--and their students--will thrive. Learn more about PSESD’s work to connect systems to support an educator workforce that reflects the diversity of our communities here.
Highlights for the 2020-21 school year include a partnership with the Road Map Improvement Collaborative (RIMC), a regional gathering of our Road Map Superintendents to support collective racial equity goals. RMIC is hosting a convening on “Cultivating a Racially Diverse and Thriving Educator Workforce.” Teams from multiple school districts attend a series of sessions to learn from educator diversity experts and from one another about designing systems that effectively recruit, retain, and nurture educators who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Together, the Collaborative makes commitments to improving their district systems and to galvanizing a regional coalition in ways that prepare our schools to be places in which BIPOC educators can thrive.
Additionally, the Grow Your Own Collaborative, which includes representatives from Road Map school districts, hosted an Educator Pathways Fair to support our region’s diverse paraeducators in starting or continuing their journey toward teacher certification. Attendees included 175 paraeducators from Auburn, Federal Way, Highline, Kent, Renton, Seattle, and Tukwila school districts, as well as paraeducators from private and out-of-area schools. Activities included a presentation by and Q&A by Pathways Navigator Nathanie Lee, panels by current PSESD Educators, and meetings with representatives from their own districts focused on their district’s programs, partnerships, and certification opportunities.
Milestones this year also included the fifth cohort for PSESD’s Regional Retention Program for Educators of Color and the Educators of Color Leadership Community (ECLC). The ECLC provides culturally relevant professional learning, mentoring, community building, and leadership development for the over 150 paraeducators, teachers, principals, family engagement specialists, counselors, and Equity Leaders of Color who serve our students every day.
Would you like to learn more about retention of new staff members of color across the region?