District’s commitment to diversity questioned
By Corey Pride, Los Banos Enterprise (Los Banos, Calif.) | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The school board will decide Thursday who will be its representative on the personnel commission for classified staff. Its former representative, insurance agent
The school board was poised to make a decision on Gutierrez's replacement at its
A 12-member local civil rights group, the
"Is this district making an effort to increase the number of minority administrators and teachers in the district? According to Ed. Code, you are required to make an effort and put in a plan of action of trying to match the employee population with the general demographics of your community," said
The population of
The classified staff personnel commission is tasked with recruiting, testing, selection and classification of non-teacher positions such as custodians, cafeteria assistants, clerical personnel and substitutes.
Mancias said he understands the commission has no jurisdiction over teacher hirings, but lack of Hispanic representation is so widespread it is important for the coalition to start somewhere.
"It's across the board. It just so happens that this was the position that came to our attention," Mancias said. "The whole city government and school system should equate as reasonably close as possible to our demographics."
The commission consists of one member selected by the classified staff's union, one by the school board, and one jointly appointed by both parties.
"I think looking out at the audience (at January's school board meeting) we represent minorities well," Soares said.
She also supports the goal of achieving diversity, but does not believe students are suffering because the district does not have more Hispanic teachers.
School board member
Jones said having role models of all ethnicities is important. "My strong feeling is I want all kids to see faces of teachers that look like them. When we see anybody that looks like us, it causes us to dream, to say I could do that too," Jones said.
Mancias said if Cantu is not appointed to the personnel commission on Thursday, his group will ask for an explanation and an outline of how the district plans to achieve diversity. He said his group bears no ill will toward candidates Menefee or Toscano.
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