When asked how many teachers of color they’ve had their entire life, students, mostly juniors and seniors, said “zero,” “one” or “two.” Not one person gave a number above three.

If you do the math, by junior and senior year, students who have attended Shorewood school district their whole lives have had somewhere between 30-40 different teachers. For many, only two of those teachers, maximum, have been people of color, and that’s alarming.

The statistics on staff ethnicities in Shorewood school district support the experiences of those students. Only 12% of the teaching staff this school year are non-white. Major discrepancies can be seen when these numbers are compared to the student demographics. While white students make up only 67% of the student body, white teachers make up 88% of the faculty, a difference of over 20%. Conversely, people of color are consistently underrepresented by anywhere from 2% to 7% percent for different races. With these numbers, it makes sense that many students have had very little experience with teachers of color.

In the past few years, there have been increasingly more conversations around representation in various industries, such as the media, the government and Hollywood. However, representation at school is just as, if not more, important. And it gets far less attention than some of the aforementioned fields. Teachers have such a major role in their students’ lives, so a diverse staff has a lot of power to benefit their students.

“Students benefit from having teachers of color because they get to see who holds information and who has the power to share information … [and] usually they see either white women or white men in those spaces,” said Samuel Coleman, equity director.

This applies to all subjects. Whether it’s  math or art, having people of color leading and teaching shows students of color that they can excel in those areas.

Stephone Jordan, social studies teacher at the high school, is African American and consciously thinks about how this gives him a platform.

“I know that I have this microscope on me, so I’m always striving and pushing to do the best that I can,” Jordan said. “Especially for those students of color that might want to be a teacher, but never had that person standing in front of them what black male excellence looks like.”

Teachers of color also provide students with strong role models and mentors. For students of color in particular, finding an adult that looks like them in a place where they’re a minority provides a feeling of safety and solidarity.

“It’s important for students to have a teacher role model in the school to look up to and to understand their own backgrounds and differences that some teachers who are non-POC maybe wouldn’t understand [or] relate to,” said Alemitu Caldart, junior.

However, having teachers of color doesn’t only impact students of color. By bringing different experiences and perspectives into the classroom, teachers of color enhance and diversify learning for all students.

Having more teachers of color also impacts the staff.

“I think when decisions are being made by teacher teams in departments … having diverse representation and diverse identities share input in those spaces allows for teachers to grapple with and experience thinking that comes from a different context,” Coleman said. “Having a teacher of color in those spaces  … gives a lens and representation of an experience and an identity that in most spaces doesn’t exist. So faculty benefit from that.”

Curriculum is another area that can be positively impacted by having teachers of color. Especially in subjects like English and history, where learning is less objective, teachers of color can shine a light on voices that have historically been suppressed and stories that haven’t been told.

As an American Society teacher, Jordan recognizes that much of the American history taught in schools is done so through a skewed lens.

“History has always been told by the ‘victor,’” Jordan said. “So often times history is Europeanized, white washed. Often times you miss the perspectives of individuals that have been colonized or have been imperialized or have suffered throughout time.”

To make sure his lessons aren’t through a Eurocentric lens, Jordan doesn’t teach from the textbook.

“If I teach from the textbook, then we’re just going to continue to perpetuate the European history,” Jordan said.  “I make sure to touch on other aspects of history so they’re not just getting this bland washed-down history that they’re going to get anywhere else that they go…  And it shows representation for all the students in the class as well.”

Diversity among the teaching staff has been improving. The percentage of teachers of color has increased by about 7% since last year. The district is finally taking some crucial steps, but there is still lots of work to be done before we reach the district’s goal of the racial makeup of the staff being similar (within 10%) to that of the student body.

The result would be a school environment in which students know that they can achieve great things no matter their race or ethnicity, a school that truly lives up to Shorewood’s mission of “Equity, Growth and Excellence for All.”