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News
School board receives diversity report : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisSchool board receives diversity report
| With a minority enrollment of 35%, report lists 'opportunities for improvement'
| by Lyle R. Rolfe
| 9/24/2009
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Not too many years ago, the Oswego School District served Oswego, a large portion of Montgomery, the unincorporated subdivision of Boulder Hill and farm children spread over the district's 68 square miles.
At that time, almost all students were white.
But as new homebuilding accelerated in the district over the past decade, things changed and the district's enrollment has grown increasingly diverse.
Today, more than 65 languages are spoken in the homes of the district's 16,200 students and the district now also includes portions of Aurora, Plainfield, Joliet and Yorkville.
Students of color increased from 22 percent in 2002 to more than 35 percent of the population in 2008, and Kendall County now has the fourth largest Hispanic population growth among all U.S. counties. But the district's staff is 94 percent white and the administrators almost 100 percent white, according to school district figures.
Because of this, last October Dr. Marsha Hollis-Golden, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, hired Bea Young, founder of the Kaleidoscope Group of Chicago, to help resolve the district's diversity imbalance.
Her goal was to make every student feel like an important part of the district by developing and implementing plans that capitalized on the benefits of the diversity to ensure that all students, families and staff are working together to achieve the district's mission.
Last week, Young spent nearly 40 minutes explaining her work and final report which numbered several hundred pages to school district board members.
"I was invited to do an assessment of the entire organization to find out what is the current perspective of this culture so they could make improvements and focus on their strengths. So, what you got in this report were strengths and opportunities for improvement," she said.
Young said she did this through one-on-one interviews with board, cabinet and association members and then interviews with 17 focus groups of principals, teachers, support staff, students, parents and community members.
"You now have a picture of interviews with several hundred people," she said.
She said they conducted homogenous focus groups "because when people are in mixed race groups, they tend to want to say the right thing rather than be candid. So, in the homogenous focus groups, Latinos were interviewed by Latinos, African Americans by African Americans, and I and a colleague interviewed whites. They were very candid and outspoken, but everything is held in total confidence and no names were mentioned."
Young said one concern expressed in the Hispanics and African American focus groups was that a lack of teachers of color creates culture of not being "good enough."
They said this can give the perception that the district is not attractive to diverse staff, making recruitment difficult.
They also noted that there is a high percentage of students of color in special education, suspension, and expulsion, creating racial achievement disparities.
She said a disconnect between the traditional white community and Hispanic and black communities creates conflicts, making parents of high school students feel excluded.
Also, different cultures at the high schools impact white and students of color differently, resulting in less self-confidence/cultural identity for students of color.
Ultimate goal: Make
all students feel valued
Young said Oswego's situation was unique because her recommendations were not new here, as they are in most districts.
"I was working with the district's diversity strategy group at the same time. They took our recommendations, put them into an action plan and were already doing the training for 400 people who came up with same recommendations as we did. So, a lot has happened already in very positive ways," she said.
Young said the ultimate goal is that the district be able to reflect and imbed all the racial and ethnic differences now in this community into their teaching, curriculum, clubs and activities, so that all students--white, Hispanic, blacks-wherever they are from, feel valued and included.
"There are black and Latino students and parents who are not feeling that way. And when you have this, it diminishes the effectiveness of the district," she said, adding, "The ultimate goal is that every student achieves at a higher level. That's the bottom line. Right now there is a gap in achievement between the white students and black and Latino students. There is nationally and here.
Young also noted she is working with the neighboring Plainfield School District which is going through the same demographic changes.
"These communities in particular, are needing this because it's new. You have the farmers who came here years ago who could not believe this was happening and the new Latino and black families who came here for a great education. They all have the same goal, but do not feel the same. And that's the conflict. By bringing it out, we're talking about it, and we now know what to do," she said.
In her report, she mentioned some of the recommendations from principals. They included seeking input from all district residents, becoming aware of what they don't know, and providing the tools to effectively communicate with the diverse communities.
They also asked that the central office support and focus on diversity issues rather than each principal having to research and create their own plan for their school.
They also recommended hiring a community liaison to be the contact with new families of different backgrounds and cultures.
And they recommended using the energy, enthusiasm and ideas of students to work toward common goals and listening closely to parents and families about their special needs and including parents and community in the diversity program.
To date the district has paid Kaleidoscope $30,000 to $40,000 last year and $10,000 this year. But it has received $10,000 in grant funding resulting in a $30,000 to-date cost.
The district applied for and received a grant to help increase student achievement from the National Education Association (NEA) for $5,000 a year for three years.
The program is funded from the district's strategic plan implementation budget.
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