Lawrence school district teachers participate in a professional development seminar at Langston Hughes elementary school in this file photo from Oct. 17, 2012.

There are more people of color working in Lawrence public schools than there were three years ago, but not many of them are teachers, according to new figures provided by the district.

Last month the Lawrence school district released figures that showed overall growth of staff members of color had increased by about 25 percent from the 2014-2015 school year to the 2016-2017 school year. But those figures included all staff members — ranging from custodians and cooks to teachers and principals. Last month’s report didn’t provide specific information about how much — if at all — certified staff of color had grown.

When asked by the Journal-World about growth rates of minority teachers, principals and other certified staff members, district leaders presented figures that show the number of certified staff of color has remained roughly the same since 2014. The figures indicate approximately 4 percent of the teachers, nurses, counselors and other certified professionals working in Lawrence’s schools identify racially as nonwhite.

That’s a problem, acknowledges Anna Stubblefield, the district’s assistant superintendent of educational support. But it’s one that the Lawrence district has been actively trying to fix for many years now, she says, in the face of the same challenges that have contributed to dwindling ranks of qualified nonwhite teachers nationwide.

“You have to look at the big picture and know that of all teachers in the country, only 17 percent are teachers of color,” said Stubblefield, who is one of the three nonwhite administrators, building and district-level positions combined, working in Lawrence Public Schools. “Of course we want to keep them all and grow our staff of color, but we are facing a reality that there’s not a huge pool to draw from, from the beginning.”

A major driving force behind the district’s continuing efforts to recruit, hire and retain staff of color, as stated in the report Stubblefield co-authored with equity facilitator Danica Moore and presented at the Oct. 10 school board meeting, is the goal of creating a racially diverse workforce that better represents the district’s student demographics.

Though diversity varies from school to school, the district’s total student population is 69 percent white, non-Hispanic. That means the roughly 30 percent of students who identify otherwise are, in most cases, being educated by teachers who don’t look like them.

“I think Lawrence is, in this respect, kind of America, writ small, in the sense that these are issues nationally that have got to be grappled with,” said Rick Ginsberg, dean of the School of Education at the University of Kansas. “If your population is 30 percent minority here, imagine what it’s like in a community that is 90-some odd percent minority and the workforce still looks like our workforce.”

In August 2014, the U.S. Department of Education projected that children of color would make up more than 50 percent of public-school enrollment nationwide by that fall, outnumbering whites in classrooms for the first time.

That same year, the National Education Association reported that educators of color accounted for just 18 percent (some sources have publicized 17 percent, the number Stubblefield referenced) of the country’s public-school teachers, slipping from 26 percent two decades before.

There are several reasons behind this diminished teaching corps, agree Stubblefield and Ginsberg, which is, to be clear, part of an overall decline in the number of young people (white and nonwhite alike) choosing to enter the teaching profession.

In a 2016 national survey of college freshmen, just 4.2 percent said they planned to major in education, down from 11 percent in 2000. The 2016 figure, according to the National Education Association, is the lowest rate reported in 45 years.

From 2009 to 2014, the number of students enrolled in schools of education nationwide dropped 35 percent, Ginsberg said. But the larger issue at play, he suggests, might be what some scholars refer to as “the leaky bucket” of teachers leaving the profession in droves over the last several years.

The teaching profession, Ginsberg says, is a tough job, made inherently more difficult by the restrictive state and federal education guidelines that have been put in place within recent years. There’s also, he adds, the sense that teaching may not offer the same financial stability that it once did, leaving our country’s best and brightest could-be educators to wonder “Is this all worth it?”

“One of the big problems that we have in the world of K-12 teaching is that a good percentage leave within five years,” and part of that is the environment teachers are working in, Ginsberg says.

“But if your goal is to create a more diverse workforce, it’s not just a matter of getting the workforce to be more diverse by hiring a more diverse faculty,” he adds. “It’s making sure you’re able to retain them for a career.”

Ginsberg recognizes the challenges Lawrence Public Schools is facing. After all, according to the National Education Association, teachers of color are leaving the profession at even higher rates than their white peers. And, before school districts like Lawrence can recruit, hire and ideally retain qualified teachers of color, those educators first must earn their degrees at universities like KU.

But the payoff, he says, is worth it. At least for the students.

Multiple studies, Ginsberg says, have proved the advantages of a racially diverse teaching workforce. And Stubblefield agrees. That’s why she and district leaders are continuing to move ahead with their efforts toward combating institutionalized racism in schools, an initiative helped along since 2009 by the district’s Beyond Diversity workshops, among other measures.

The next step: putting more strategies in place to guide teachers through the implementation of culturally relevant curricula, so that all students see themselves represented in their education.

Part of this, she notes, is having white allies in the classroom. And, right now, as the numbers show, there are plenty of them in Lawrence Public Schools.

“We have an expectation that all students feel safe in an environment where their learning can occur. So, we’ve made a commitment,” Stubblefield said. “I think everyone benefits from having diversity and having multiple perspectives in the room or at the table, regardless of what the situation is.”