“Education is important to my parents. I attended the best private schools, but as a high schooler, I made an independent decision to be in a school that was a reflection of my beautiful brown caramel skin. I would no longer have to explain what it meant to live and be bilingual and bicultural in a predominantly white environment.”
“Living a double life, is what I call it. My organization says, ‘Racial equity matters’; my organization says, ‘We do the work.’ But we recently hired five staff members who don’t meet any of the racial equity or linguistic strategic goals.”
Those remarks from adults and young people reflect the need for equitable hiring practices, particularly in schools. Organizations committed to increasing staff diversity often struggle to identify effective strategies to recruit, hire, and retain employees from these rich and vibrant communities.
Increasing Workplace Diversity
Recent studies have shown that increased racial and linguistic diversity in the workplace can lead to various outcomes:
- Increased employee engagement and productivity
- Greater profits for an organization
- More courageous conversations about race
- A narrower racial achievement gap between students of color and white students
- More sustainable succession planning for staff members
- More creativity and innovation
- Improved diversity insight and inclusionary work practices
The state of Oregon study, the 2018 Oregon Educator Equity Report, states, “The educator workforce is not shifting quickly enough to respond to the school districts’ changing ethnically and linguistically diverse K–12 student body.”
The report’s research indicates that when students from culturally and linguistically diverse communities have teachers with similar demographic backgrounds, the students have higher attendance rates, lower suspension and expulsion rates, improved academic achievement, and a higher rate of college attendance. For this reason alone, the Oregon legislature adopted the Oregon Educator Equity Act, which is a call to action to intentionally increase recruitment, hiring, and retention of diverse educators in Oregon.
The state’s goal is to increase the percentage of diverse educators employed by a school district or an education service district to reflect the percentage of diverse students in the district or in the state’s public schools.
Portland Public Schools identified key areas of improvement several years ago and strategized to educate employees in ways that would help them understand our core mission, our values, and our why. The district’s Office of Equity and Partnerships led this effort, and leaders across the district influenced the outcomes in a collaborative, supportive, and culturally responsive manner. Although those efforts and results were not perfect, they improved outcomes for students and staff members by developing, processing, learning, and providing action.
For example, the district implemented a variety of policies and strategies:
- Oregon Educator Equity Act
- Portland Public Schools Racial Educational Equity Policy
- Courageous Conversations about Race protocols
- Affirmative action strategies
- An employees of color network
- Equity teams
- Care teams
- Staff of color focus groups
- Restorative justice
- Informal and formal mentoring
- Professional development opportunities that align with our strategic planning goal
Additional strategies included the removal of systemic barriers and advancement of racial equity, workforce diversity, and inclusive practices. These approaches were implemented across the school district while recruiting and retaining a workforce that reflected the diversity of its students, partners, and the community.
Equitable hiring practices can be woven into the fabric of the district’s recruitment and hiring practices. Here are some strategies.
Recruitment Strategies
The following methods can support districts’ efforts to achieve equitable hiring practices.
1. Develop a job description that details the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities for the position, including intentional language that can attract applicants who can expand the diversity of the workforce, which in turn will enrich the learning experiences and perspectives of the organization.
Be mindful of qualities missing from a team, such as race, gender, language, religion, veteran status, dis(abilities), or other diversity factors not currently represented, and develop an appropriate vocabulary for appealing to applicants having such qualities. For example, avoid gender-coded words like “dominate,” “aggressive,” or “competitive” when trying to recruit female employees.
2. Create a job posting to solicit résumés and applications from diverse applicants. The job posting should be unique and inclusive; it should include the salary, the link to the district’s website, and a strong explicit statement about the district’s and department’s racial equity goals.
For example: “Seeking insightful, independent team players to support activities for the Talent Management Department. If you are an influencer, self-starter, and results-focused HR professional with a passion for talent acquisition, please apply for this position. The district is focused on eliminating systemic racism and its impact on student learning. Having a commitment to racial equity and social justice is desirable.”
3. Advertise in the right place. Identify culturally specific advertising strategies and areas. Post jobs on nontraditional sites, such as culture-specific radio stations and newspapers, and on links that host events for potential candidates from racially and linguistically diverse communities.
4. Identify the screening and interview team. Members of this team will actively participate and help screen candidates. Staff and community members on the team should be educated and informed of the types of biases that occur in applicant screening and hiring decisions. The screening and interview team should be at least 30% diverse, if possible.
5. Create a screening tool. The screening tool should include the minimum and preferred qualifications from the job description. It should also include screening questions regarding preferred skills, required knowledge, and at least one essay question focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
6. Screen applications. The screening team should divide applications and screen for qualifications. do the following:
- Screeners should be flexible and include diverse perspectives at every stage of screening.
- They should strongly consider the perspective of the underrepresented candidates in the pool, especially if the candidate self-identifies and explores that in the racial equity essay.
- Screeners should keep the value of equity and inclusion at the forefront of the screening criteria, ignoring the tendency to favor those who are similar or “just like us.”
7. Review the applicant selection pool. Ensure that screened applicants meet the necessary criteria. If the applicant pool is culturally underrepresented, the hiring manager should consider taking additional steps to broaden the pool. Ensure that 25% of the applicant pool is diverse before moving forward with the interview process; if it is not, extend the closing date and reconsider recruitment and advertising strategies. If 25% of the candidates meet the organization’s diversity, racial equity, or affirmative action goals, the hiring manager should meet with the team to calibrate two applications to ensure consistent and equitable screening processes and scoring.
8. Develop a scoring rubric for the interview questions. An interview scoring rubric should score applicants on their knowledge, skills, and abilities that are directly related to the interview questions. Highlight the following areas to help assess an applicant’s knowledge, skills, and abilities during the interview:
- Does the applicant show evidence of removing barriers (power, race as a social construct)?
- Has the applicant built authentic relationships with students from diverse cultural, racial, or linguistic backgrounds?
- Is the applicant self-reflective and conscious of his or her own racial perspective?
- Can the applicant discuss how to differentiate instruction?
- Can the applicant discuss culturally responsive teaching practices?
- Does the applicant demonstrate knowledge of how to build relationships with families from culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse communities?
9. Create interview questions. The interview questions should assess the skills, knowledge, and abilities outlined in the job description, including the minimum and preferred qualifications outlined in the job description.
- Include at least two culturally relevant interview questions.
- Review interview questions to address unintentional biases.
- Refrain from using such phrases as “Would you be the right fit for this position or organization?”
10. Review and facilitate the bias awareness training with the interview panel. Provide the interview panel with the bias awareness training materials several days in advance of the interviews so they may (a) review and discuss types of biases and examples, (b) discuss how to recognize and eliminate the influence of biases in the recruitment process, and (c) complete the confidentiality form.
Each Recruitment as an Opportunity
School districts must consider not only how recruited talent measures up to the required work duties, but also how the position (and the person hired) will contribute toward the institution’s goals, values, and mission. Each recruitment must be viewed as an opportunity to expand the diversity of the workforce, which, in turn, will enrich the learning experiences and perspectives of the students and staff members the district serves.
Equitable hiring practices are intentional and strategic, and they should be woven into the informal and formal fabric of the district’s recruitment and hiring processes so that we may all achieve the outcomes we want for our students and their families.