Education Week - September 30, 2020 - 6

How COVID-19 Is Hurting Teacher Diversity
'Last in, first out' policies
can disproportionately affect
teachers of color
The Schenectady, N.Y., school district realized it needed to do better by
its students of color: The vast majority
of its teachers were white, while less
than a third of students are. A couple
years ago, the district began ramping
up its efforts to hire more teachers of
color, as well as provide anti-racist
training for its staff.
The Albany-area district was highlighted by the state education department and other groups for its efforts,
which included recruiting a more
diverse pool of educators, building
relationships with historically Black
colleges and universities, and creating affinity spaces to help educators of
color feel supported once on staff.
It seemed like momentum was gaining. But earlier this month, more than
100 teachers and social workers, most
of whom were hired during this recent
push for diversity, logged onto a Zoom
call and were told they no longer had
jobs. Altogether, the district, which has
been hit with statewide budget cuts,
has laid off about 320 teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, and social
workers, nearly half of whom are educators of color.
Until then, for the most part, working at the district "felt like the dream
that any socially conscious teacher
would want to be a part of," said Karen
Lewis, a Black kindergarten teacher
who was laid off. "For me, that's the
hardest blow. The potential was just,
in a day, gone. ... [Students here have]
been neglected and disenfranchised
for years, and we had an opportunity to change that, and boom, it was
snatched [away from us]."
Thousands of teachers have been
laid off this spring and summer as
districts reel from state budget cuts
due to the coronavirus pandemic,
and experts have predicted that
without a substantial federal bailout,
the layoffs will continue throughout
the year and accelerate next spring.
Teacher layoffs are devastating for
any school community-but an unintended consequence is often a
further eroding of the diversity of
the teaching force, which is already
about 80 percent white.
When districts have only recently
started actively recruiting teachers of
color, layoffs that are based on a "last
in, first out" policy of seniority can
unravel those new initiatives. Those
policies are often supported by teachers' unions, which say that seniority is
a transparent and objective standard.
But other experts say such policies are
chipping away at hard-fought progress
to a more diverse workforce.
"Teachers of color are not afforded
the privilege of longevity," said Travis
Bristol, an assistant professor at the
University of California, Berkeley's
Graduate School of Education. Teach-

ers of color on average turn over at
higher rates than white teachers.
At least 16 states require tenure or
seniority status to be used as the primary factor for layoff decisions, while
another 16 states require teacher evaluation scores to be the main consideration, according to an analysis by the
Education Commission of the States.
At least nine states prohibit the use of
seniority as the primary or sole factor.
Some states leave it up to individual
districts.
Following the Great Recession-
when 300,000 teachers were laid off,
estimates suggest-some states moved
away from last in, first out policies. But
Katharine Strunk, a professor at Michigan State University who studies education labor markets, said that trend
has slowed in recent years.

Roger Richardson for Education Week

By Madeline Will

"All the teachers [who] were cut were new. We're the
most diverse group, that's all gone-we're all gone.
KAREN LEWIS
Former teacher in Schenectady, N.Y., school district who was laid off despite
the district's goals for a diverse teaching force

done in one quick stroke."
According to a district spokeswoman, nearly 24 percent of the
laid-off teachers, paraprofessionals,
and counselors were Black, 9 percent
were Asian, and another 9 percent
were Hispanic. The Daily Gazette
reported that last year, just 4 percent
of district faculty were Black, almost 3
percent were Hispanic, and 2 percent
were Asian.
In recent years, the Schenectady
district had also provided anti-racist
training for its staff and emphasized
cultural competency, and Bochniak
said the teachers who were let go were
likely a key part in those initiatives.
"We lose the momentum we've
built with that staff," he said. "While
they hold all that knowledge, that
knowledge might be transferred to
another school district."
Bochniak said he thinks the district
should be pushing for changes to the
last in, first out policy-both in terms of
advocacy at the state level and during
the collective bargaining process with
the teachers' union. He said layoff determinations should consider characteristics other than seniority, "and race
might be one of them, ... so if this were
to happen again, God forbid, we're not
in the same place."
In Brookline, Mass., about 300
educators were laid off at the end of
May to help close a gaping budget
shortfall. Graciela Mohamedi, a Latina high school physics teacher, was

If we understand a diverse teaching force as a necessity for the success
of students of color, then how can we deem this issue as essential
and not just an additive program that flows with the economic tide?
RITA KOHLI
Associate professor, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Riverside

Research shows that when districts
lay off teachers by seniority, poor
schools and schools with large populations of Black and Latino students are
hardest hit. Teachers of color tend to
work in schools that serve a high proportion of students of color.
And churn among the teaching staff
can result in lower academic outcomes and decreased teacher quality,
Strunk said.
"The equity implications for our
most traditionally underserved districts is just astounding," she said.

'A Sledgehammer'
In light of a massive budget shortfall, New York state is withholding
20 percent of its funding to school
districts across the state, causing already cash-strapped districts, like
Schenectady, to eliminate hundreds
of positions.
An across-the-board cut affects the
Schenectady City district, which relies
heavily on state aid, much more than

6 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 30, 2020 | www.edweek.org

affluent districts, said Acting Superintendent Aaron Bochniak in an interview. In the nearly 10,000-student
district, 79 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged.
"[The cut] might be a sledgehammer for us, but just a tiny play hammer
for others," Bochniak said.
Bochniak has laid off or eliminated
the positions of more than 200 paraprofessionals and more than 100
teachers and social workers. On Sept.
16, he issued dozens more pink slips,
including to administrators, central office staff, and community engagement
specialists.
The layoffs have been devastating.
During the Zoom call in which teachers were told they were being laid off,
there was a lot of crying, Lewis said.
District officials said they'd try to
bring the staff back as soon as possible
if they were able to secure more funding. But Lewis said she has nothing in
writing to assure her of that.
"All the teachers [who] were cut
were new," she said. "We're the most

diverse group, that's all gone-we're
all gone. What I was told was, 'It
wasn't intentional,' but ignorance
doesn't excuse [it]."
New York requires districts to "primarily" lay off educators based on
seniority, and Bochniak said Schenectady only considers seniority and
content area. But those measures
don't take into account the district's
goals of diversity and cultural competency. A third of students are Black,
while 27 percent are white, 19 percent are Hispanic, and 17 percent are
Asian, district data show.
Research has shown that having a
teacher of color can increase learning for Black and Latino students and
foster their social and emotional development.
"We had a very intense focus on
diversifying our staff. ... Over the last
two years, we've strived toward that
goal, [and] it's a slow process," Bochniak said. "When we're faced with
these budget concerns like this, it
really wipes away all the work we've

one of them. In the past few years, the
district had ramped up its recruitment
of teachers of color to better match its
student population-and under the
last in, first out policy, many of those
teachers were let go.
"They like to talk about diversity a
whole lot, and they like to talk about
things they could do to make it better,"
Mohamedi said. "They aren't actually
willing to do the real honest work in
order to retain educators of color."
Ultimately, the district was able to recall the laid off staff a month later. But
Mohamedi said the ordeal has had lasting consequences for the community.
"There were a lot of educators of
color who chose not to go back simply
because of the fact they felt like they
had been so mistreated," she said. "It
was a culmination of years and years
of living with race-related stress in the
workshop."
Even so, Mohamedi, the community
relations chair for Brookline Educators United, the local teachers' union,
doesn't think eliminating seniority pro-

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Education Week - September 30, 2020

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