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Guiding the way

Dedicated teachers are the key to helping Hispanic students feel comfortable enough to learn well.

The National Education Association reported this spring that less than 5 percent of the nation’s teachers are Hispanic.

That raises concerns since Hispanic students are the fastest-growing group in public schools. Educators say that while the priority is finding qualified, good teachers regardless of ethnicity, expanding the number of minority teachers is also important.

David Garcia, an assistant professor in Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, says minority teachers can help build a more familiar environment for students.

"Schools are foreign places for all students as they leave the natural, comfortable environment of their home," Garcia says. "For students further removed from mainstream American culture, that experience is even more foreign. Anything we can do to make it easier for students to get more quickly accustomed is important. If that means seeing faces like yours, it could be very important for some students."

Locally, some principals say a shortage of teaching applicants narrows their choices.

"It’s an added plus if (job candidates) are minority and we are able to recruit them. But we want to get the best candidate for the job, it doesn’t matter to me what color they are," says Patricia Heichel, principal at Estrella Middle School in west Phoenix.

Likewise, while about 75 percent of the students at Larry C. Kennedy school are Latino, recently-retired principal Johnny Chavez says most of the longtime staff is not bilingual or Latino. While acknowledging that minority teachers can serve as role models for minority kids, in his experience any teacher can be a role model.

"A dedicated teacher is a dedicated teacher. If they have the skill sets, the kids are going to learn. If kids know the teacher loves them, they’ll learn," he says.

Chavez hopes more students are motivated to enter public education as he was when he began his teaching career.

"My heroes were teachers that taught me. I thought ‘I’d like to do that,’ " Chavez remembers. Now that he has retired after 35 years in education, he says "I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else."

Financial assistance might also help more students enter education. For instance, the Hispanic Leadership Forum del Oeste (HLF) is offering scholarships for college-bound Hispanic students in the West Valley who seek an education career. HLF hopes students awarded scholarships will return to the West Valley to teach. Deadline for applications is Aug. 15. Call 623-932-0784 for more information.