Bob Lominska spends his days in an overwhelmingly female enclave.

He is an elementary school teacher.

“In fact, that’s one of the reasons I did it. I wanted to show little boys that men could teach,” said Lominska, a kindergarten teacher at Hillcrest School.

Classroom instruction has long been dominated by women, and it’s likely to remain that way for many years.

The number of male public school teachers in the United States stands at a 40-year low, according to research by the National Education Assn. After two decades of decline, just 21 percent of the nation’s 3 million teachers are men.

The survey, a snapshot of the nation’s classrooms taken every five years, indicates the percentage of male teachers in elementary schools is even lower, and has fallen regularly since 1981. That year, it reached an all-time high of 18 percent. Today, 9 percent of elementary teachers are men.

The percentage of males in secondary schools has fluctuated, but stands around 35 percent.

Shortage in Lawrence

The gender split in Lawrence public schools reflects the national trend.

Twenty-two percent of the district’s teachers were men in the 2003 school year. About 7 percent of elementary teachers were men last year, said Mary Rodriguez, the district’s executive director of human resources.

Wayne Kruse, the only male teacher at Quail Run School, said he could think of no more than 20 men who were frontline elementary school teachers in the Lawrence district. One-third of the district’s 15 elementary schools have no male classroom teachers, he said.

Bob Lominska, left, kindergarten teacher at Hillcrest School, gives some advice to Elliott Abromeit, far right, while assisting Seolji Eom, center, with a spelling exercise. Lominska, one of the few male elementary teachers in Lawrence, said he went into teaching, in part, to help break gender barriers.

Absence of males at the classroom blackboard is so pervasive, Kruse said, that some children arrive in his sixth-grade classroom fearful of being taught by a man.

“Often what parents tell me is that some kids are scared because they’ve never had a man teacher before,” he said. “They don’t know what to expect.”

What makes male teachers an increasingly endangered species in America’s school classrooms?

In part, the shortage of men can be traced to gender stereotype. The prevailing notion is that men go into teaching to “teach the subject” and women enter teaching to nurture and develop children. A consequence is that men are drawn to secondary schools and women gravitate to elementary schools.

Economic reasons also play a role in the gender split. Low salaries relative to other professions undercut efforts to recruit men to be teachers, because many don’t believe they can raise a family on a teacher’s salary. The average contract salary in the NEA survey, based on 2001 statistics, was $43,262.

“The very groups we need to recruit and retain the most are leaving the profession because of the poor compensation,” said Reg Weaver, NEA president.

¢Male teacher shortage affects face of American classroom (09-18-03)¢U.S. teachers aren’t diverse, survey says (08-28-03)¢Gender gap still wide in Kansas workplaces (09-30-01)¢Census shows gender gap narrowing (09-10-01)¢Elementary schools cite absence of male teachers (07-03-00)¢MenTeach¢NEA: The Guy Teacher

Role models

The shortage of men in elementary schools can be viewed as a golden opportunity for college students entering a tight job market, said Mike Neal, assistant dean of the school of education at Kansas University.

Neal said he was working harder to encourage male students to consider a career in elementary education. Where there is a personnel shortage, he argues, there is a job opportunity.

“It’s supply and demand,” he said. “Males in elementary education are definitely in that line.”

Lack of men in elementary schools can have a detrimental effect on development of children.

Sharen Steele, principal at New York School, said she was grateful to have two excellent male classroom teachers at the school. But the overall gender imbalance deprives boys and girls of role models, she said.

“I find that we have an awful lot of single-parent families,” Steele said. “This is one opportunity for them to have a positive male role model.”

Lominska said he had always been aware of the void he helped fill for some students.

“I get called daddy,” he said.

It is for the children that he would applaud a change in attitude among men so that service as an elementary teacher wasn’t considered an oddity.

In addition to strengthening classroom dynamics, he said, a few more men would help on the field of play.

“It’s hard to get a guy’s softball team together in an elementary school,” he joked.