Staying true to the mission of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU), Simmons College of Kentucky will partner with Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) to increase and retain the number of minority teachers in the district.
The partnership is part of JCPS’ Racial Equity Plan, which includes increasing the number of teachers of color from 16 percent to 18 percent (128 more teachers) and increasing administrators of color to 36 percent (31 more administrators) by 2020. Currently, 36 percent of JCPS students identify as African American, while only about 13 percent of teachers identify as African American.
“Statistics show that [students] perform better when they can see aspirational models – the teachers that look like them – in the classroom,” said Dr. Frank Smith Jr., executive vice president and special assistant to the president at Simmons College of Kentucky. Simmons president Dr. Kevin W. Cosby “really had a vision for how could Simmons, a newly designated HBCU in America, provide much of the same leadership in helping to prepare minority teachers for our school system, locally, throughout the state and beyond,” Smith said.
As Simmons began to explore options about how to develop its own educator preparation program, Cosby reached out to JCPS superintendent Dr. Martin “Marty” Pollio, Smith added.
“The idea was met with a tremendous need in our school system for minority teachers,” he said. “This was a very good opportunity to try to develop an innovative partnership between the two entities.”
Pollio told WDRB that the partnership with Simmons will be “critical” for ensuring that teaching demographics mirror those of students in the JCPS district.
This parity is particularly important as a recent study this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that having one Black teacher increases a Black elementary student’s chances of attending college by 13 percent; having two Black teachers increased that likelihood to 32 percent, the study said.
