VIRGINIA BEACH
Virginia Beach schools are continuing to increase the diversity of their teaching staff, board members learned Tuesday night. Among teachers hired for the 2008-09 school year, 13.2 percent were African American and 3.4 percent were Hispanic. This is the second consecutive year those percentages have increased. The percentage of Asians and Native Americans hired dropped slightly.
In Beach schools, 27.3 percent of students are African American, compared with 11 percent of teachers and 18 percent of administrators. The city schools have been working to better reflect the student population by increasing recruiting at minority-aimed job fairs.
Study: kids fall behind in program
A second-year analysis of full-day kindergarten classes for at-risk students in Beach public schools found the program reduced the number of students held back or recommended for summer school. However, students in the extended-day kindergarten program began to fall behind their peers academically after the first quarter of first grade, the School Board heard Tuesday.
Virginia Beach offers half-day kindergarten for most students. Those chosen to attend the extended-day programs because of academic struggles stay for the entire school day. Betsy Taylor, assistant superintendent for elementary education, said the school division will work to better target reading help to former extended-day students after they leave kindergarten.
- Lauren Roth
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
How shallow is this goal?
Who cares what percentage of any race or ethnic group is teaching in Virginia Beach, as long as the quality and commitment to the student body is there? More unquestioned PC racial Kool-Aid from the Liberal Left.
Puzzeled
Why is the color of the teachers skin important at all? How many Filipino teachers does Va Beach have? Virginia Beach has the largest concentration of Filipinos on the east coast and they are the largest Asian minority group in the area. Do they not care that they too are underrepresented or do they realize that it doesn't really matter as long as they are getting a proper education and don't try to find excuses for not getting one? Hmmm, maybe there IS something to that bell curve after all.