The Howard County school system remains committed to a diversified work force, though the number of new minority teachers dipped slightly from 2004 to 2005, according to a newly released school human resources report.
“We?re doing everything we can to diversify our staff. It is our primary goal,” Kirk Thompson, the system?s director of human resources said during the April 6 school board meeting.
According to the document, 513 new teachers were hired from Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2005. The number represents a 31.9 percent increase from the previous reporting period and is the highest number of new hires in the last five years.
Of the new hires, 17.9 percent represented minority groups, a decrease of 1.4 percent from the previous year, according to the report.
More than half the new teachers in the Howard County school system brought prior work experience with them to their positions, and 58 percent were hired outside of the state because of an ongoing teacher shortage within Maryland.
The school system offered 133 signing bonuses in critical areas to keep the teachers in areas including English, English for speakers of other languages, and mathematics.
“How do we find the best and brightest in Howard County?” Thompson said as he presented the report. “We train and retrain our recruiters each year.”
To accomplish that goal, Thompson said the system partners with local historically black colleges in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. He added that efforts are also made to reach out to colleges with significant Asian and Latino populations in Illinois, New Jersey and Texas.
School Board Chairman Joshua Kaufman commended Thompson on the report, but said he would like to see more Asian and Hispanic teachers and administrators hired.
“These are our fastest-growing student groups,” Kaufman said.
Number of new teachers by gender and race
Male
Black: 18
Asian/Pacific Islander: 1
Hispanic: 0
American Indian/
Alaskan Native: 0
White: 89
Female
Black: 41
Asian/Pacific Islander: 21
Hispanic: 7
American Indian/
Alaskan Native: 4
White: 332
Source: Howard County school
human resources report
