Activity: Participate in the recruitment and/or hiring process that promotes diversity.

Description: East Brainerd Elementary School is a school that is made up of many

diverse cultures. One of our former superintendents used to refer to us as the United
ations of !amilton "ounty #ecause $e $ere the most diverse school in the county.
%hile our student population is very diverse the same does not hold true for our faculty
and staff. Part of this is due to the fact that there is typically a lo$ turnover of faculty at
East Brainerd Elementary. &ast year there happened to #e several retirements and
resignations thus allo$ing us to recruit and hire a more diverse faculty and staff.
%hat $ent $ell'
(iming $as on our side) Several schools $ithin !amilton "ounty $ere #ecoming i*one
schools and many teachers $ere loo+ing to transfer. (his $as great for us #ecause $e
$ere a#le to intervie$ many $onderful and highly ,ualified teachers for the positions.
After several days of intervie$ing $hat seemed li+e -.. candidates $e $ere a#le to fill /
regular education positions0- "D" position0 and - ES& position. Out of the / regular
education positions 1 $ere filled $ith African American teachers and a male teacher
filled one position as $ell. A Spanish2spea+ing teacher filled the ESO& position. (hese
hires helped diversify our staff tremendously. 3n grades 4250 6 of the 7 grade levels have
at least one African American teacher on staff and 6 of the 7 grade levels have at least
one male teacher on staff.
%hat did not'
Even though $e $ere a#le to add additional African American teachers and a male
teacher to our staff $e are still not as diverse as $e could #e 8or should #e9. Our
!ispanic students still do not have !ispanic teachers to loo+ up to or associate $ith and
our African American students do not have African American males that they can loo+ up
to as role models. %hile $e did have some African American males intervie$ $e did
not have any !ispanics ma+e the first cut and the African American males that did
intervie$ $ere not the #est candidates. (he other thing that did not go $ell $as that $e
intervie$ed so many people it $as very difficult to +eep everyone straight and to give
everyone a fair chance. (he candidates that $ere intervie$ing at the end of the day $ere
definitely at a disadvantage for no other reason than $e $ere getting tired. %e needed to
rethin+ the intervie$ process so that $e could give everyone a fair chance.
:iven the chance to do it again0 ho$ $ould you do it #etter'
3 $ould have li+ed to changed the intervie$ process so that $e could have a #etter
screening process at the #eginning. (his $ould allo$ us to get through the masses and
$e could focus on our top candidates and give them all a much fairer chance.
3 thin+ $e needed to continue to $or+ on recruiting additional candidates especially for
our 6
th
and 5
th
grade positions. 3 thin+ that these are the grade levels that $ould really
#enefit from having strong0 esta#lished0 intelligent0 male role models for our minority
students.