AMHERST — A continued focus on enhancing the diversity of staff teaching at the Amherst-Pelham Regional schools will again be supported by a state grant.
Superintendent Michael Morris told the Regional School Committee on Tuesday that he received notification of the successful request from the state’s Teacher Diversification Pilot Program, which assists districts to retain and recruit a diverse staff.
The Dec. 2 letter from Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito states that the regional district, which serves students from Amherst, Shutesbury, Leverett and Pelham, is getting $83,193 from the fiscal year 2023 program.
“We want to thank you for your commitment toward continuing to improve the educational experience for students,” Baker and Polito wrote. “Through this funding and your continued support, we hope to expand access to great educational opportunities in the commonwealth.”
State Department of Education data shows that 31% of the 251 staff at the regional schools identify as persons of color. In 2019, when Amherst also received a diversification grant, almost 27% of the 267 staff identified as persons of color, an increase from two years earlier, when just under 20% of the 261 staff were persons of color.
The program can provide tuition assistance for paraprofessionals and provisionally licensed teachers, as well as relocation allowance and signing bonuses for bringing in new teachers.
Both Hadley and Holyoke public schools, also previous recipients of diversification grants, were awarded money.
In addition, Morris said he continues to serve on the state’s Racial Imbalance Advisory Council, a 13-member panel that provides direction to the state education commissioner and Board of Education by assessing statewide patterns related to desegregation and integration and disseminating information regarding racial balance in schools.
As part of that council, Morris said he appreciates the state’s one-year extension of the granting of emergency licenses for teachers, which has been helpful in getting more people into the educational field.
Morris also highlighted a recent two-day training at the school for speech language pathologists that included a presentation by Catherine Crowley, a speech language pathologist at Columbia University.
“Speech Standard American Language Pathologist: Addressing Systematic Racism and Implicit Bias” was the title of Crowley’s talk, Morris said. During the presentation, which he dropped in on, Crowley outlined the different dialects people use in speaking English and the various ways people converse orally.
The importance of understanding a culturally and linguistically diverse population is critical, Morris said, and the district can take lessons so we are “making sure we are supporting all our students in the best ways.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
