Cambridge School Committee Discusses Minority Teacher Recruitment

With talk of combining two local elementary schools still brewing, Cambridge School Committee members discussed how to increase the number of minority teachers in the school system Saturday morning.

The roundtable discussion was held at the Howard Johnson's Hotel on Memorial Drive and was organized by a local citizens group, Cambridge Citizens Moving Forward. Topics ranged the educational gamut as the two dozen audience members and forum organizers posed questions of the committee.

School committee members spent the most time addressing the dearth of minority teachers in the Cambridge school system compared to the minority student population.

According to school district figures, 33 percent of students in kindergarten to eighth grade are black, but only 7 percent of the students' teachers are black.

Committee member Joseph G. Grassi said the district's cumbersome hiring process are partly to blame for the system's failure to hire more black teachers.

Grassi said he favors letting "the superintendent hire teachers of color right away," bypassing a hiring process he said takes three to four months and means Cambridge loses many minority teachers to other districts that have streamlined procedures.

Superintendent of School Bobbie J. D'Alessandro has asked the committee to grant her the power to hire minority teachers without going through the usual resume and interview committees.

If the planned merger of the Fletcher and Maynard elementary schools is approved, the new school will be in a new or renovated facility and its principal will have broad authority to choose a new staff. Committee members said this would be an opportunity to increase the number of minority teachers at that school.

"As we talk about improving the building, we need to go out and seek teachers that reflect the [Fletcher-Maynard] demographic," said Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio, who is also chair of the school committee.

Members also suggested giving college scholarships to Cambridge high school graduates who agree to return to the district as teachers after college. They said the school district should help prospective teachers find housing and provide mentors for new teachers.

School parents and committee members also addressed concerns about the restructuring of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS).

Alice L. Turkel, a school committee member, said she was concerned about the impending elimination of the section of the school currently devoted to technical training. Turkel says she supports a plan proposed by superintendent D'Alessandro.

That plan entails sending Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students to the Minuteman Technical Academy, which offers training in more than 30 fields.

"I don't think we could do that many tracks of a high quality," said Turkel, a former woodworking teacher, "so I support sending students to Minuteman."

But committee member E. Denise Simmons said she was "hesitant" about D'Alessandro's plan to send CRLS students to Minuteman.

"I'm not sure we're getting what we want," she said, referring to the handful of Cambridge high school students who now attend the school. "We have not studied it. Are they graduating? Are they working in their fields?"

Several parents also asked committee members how they would increase parental involvement in the schools.

"Parent involvement is an organic thing, not something you can mandate or set up a plan for," said committee member Nancy Walser, who is known for her annual Parents Guide to Cambridge Schools.

She said schools should invite parents on field trips and rely more on newsletters and posters than on the Internet to publicize events.

Cambridge Citizens Moving Forward, the organizers of the event, has previously put together candidate forums during school committee and city council elections last fall.

Six of the seven school committee members attended at least part of the two and a half hour forum. Alfred B. Fantini was chaperoning a high school ski trip and did not attend.