Cape puts focus on minority hiring, reducing suspensions

A new focus on closing achievement gaps and updates on minority hiring and discipline highlighted an Oct. 15 community meeting in Lewes.

Cape Superintendent Bob Fulton said the Community Minority Liaison Committee has been working throughout the year to improve minority staff hiring and discipline disparity.

“We’ve had some successes, and we’ll continue to improve,” Fulton said.

Fulton said all employees learned about hiring goals and student discipline at the district’s opening-day festivities. He said he met with all new staff members and will meet with all administrators individually throughout the fall to emphasize district goals.

“It’s not something we’re just presenting,” he said. “It’s something we’re presenting and talking about all the time, and making sure it’s a focal point in what we do.”

Fulton said changes in recruiting, including visiting more historically black colleges and universities, and changing dual-certification criteria, allowed the district to cast a wider net and hire more minority candidates. Of the 26 new teachers hired this school year, 10 are minorities, he said.

“We have 300 teachers, and if we increase our minority hiring by 5 or 10 a year, it will really help close the gap,” he said.

Love Creek Principal Lisa Morris outlined the district’s strategy to guide minority paraprofessionals toward certified teaching careers.

“Starting last year, we went through a list of people who might be interested in working in education full time,” she said, noting many candidates had former careers and other degrees, and needed only a path to certification. She said officials will meet again with interested paraprofessionals in November.

Assistant Superintendent Jenny Nauman said the district works with colleges to allow paraprofessionals to complete student teaching while working.

“It doesn’t make sense to have them student teach for 9 to 18 weeks and not get paid,” she said.

Fulton said administrators encourage middle school students to enter Cape High’s student pathway for educators. These aspiring educators also visit elementary students to encourage teaching as a career.

Fulton said the district is reviewing suspensions to make sure students are in school as much as possible. Overall, he said, the district has the second-lowest suspension rate for first-time student suspensions among Delaware schools.

“Any suspension is one more than we want,” he said. “We know African-American students are suspended at higher rates than our Caucasian students, and we need to do better with that as well.”

Nauman said restorative practices and trauma-informed care can help reduce suspensions by allowing students to correct inappropriate behavior and staff to find root causes of student misbehavior.

“Students can’t learn if they’re not in the classroom,” she said, noting a time-out or partial suspension may be considered instead of a full-day suspension.

Community Minority Liaison Committee member and retired educator Hattie Bull said these issues have been around for decades.

“You have stepped up the game, and we hope that this will continue because this issue is not recent,” she said. “It’s time for changes to be made for the benefit of the children.”

Bull said parental support is key to closing the educational achievement gap.

“As a committee, we are planning to go into communities and speak with parents,” she said. “We had hoped for a larger turnout tonight to stress the importance of getting actively involved in their children’s education.”  

Fulton said the district has connected with pre-K programs to help get young learners ready for school.

First State Community Action Agency Director Bernice Edwards said many children do not attend preschool because, even with Delaware’s Purchase of Care program, which helps eligible parents with daycare expenses, day care is too expensive.

“The Purchase of Care is too high, so the parent stays home,” she said. “Every home is not a two-parent household. There’s one struggling parent or grandparents raising kids. We have to work together to see a difference, but its not going to happen overnight. We will never close the gap until we work together as a team.”