Reply to Does DCPS have a program to recruit/retain teachers of color?

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[quote=Anonymous]AA Male Here.

The joke in college was that the black men wouldn't even have to interview. Just show up. That's pretty much what my experience was. My interview lasted all of five minutes. I didn't have to present a demo lesson or do any of the things other teachers told me they had to do.

Now there's a flip side to it. I definitely wasn't prepared to handle the behaviors. I think a demo lesson would've made that obvious. People always talk about "our" kids needing a strong male role model, because a lot of them don't have it at home. The problem is that a lot of the kids I taught had pent up anger and resentment, and they were extremely combative or dismissive with me. I feel like they were quicker to respect the women in the building as they had a motherly quality even when a lot of them were yelling, cursing, or berating them in front of their peers.

In the end, I toed the line between effective and ineffective on every observation. I spent the entire year worrying about being fired and reached out for help. I went to PDs, I was assigned to an instructional coach who shadowed me twice a week, and my master educator took me to another school to see another "black man who went through what you went through last year." None of these things were official DCPS practices. They were just informal things that those in my support network came up with.

I received a lot of praise at the end of the year for all of the progress I'd made. I needed an IMPACT score of 200 in order to come back. I scored 209 but DCPS deducted ten points due to me having more than one unscheduled absence in the first half of the year, so my final score was 199. I emailed the chancellor and told her that while I respected the rules, I was hoping there was some exception that could be made given my progress as a first year teacher and the odds of success at my school. She was very sincere in her response and made a good point that sometimes wanting to do a good job just isn't enough.

I say all of that to say that there is definitely a bias toward hiring black males. There is a lot of support (albeit informal) to keep black males in the profession, but there are no extra points when it comes to retention. [/quote]

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