Rebutting sharp criticism from the NAACP, Howard County school officials said they are pleased with their track record of hiring African-Americans and committed to having a racially diverse staff.

In a letter sent last weekto the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Superintendent Michael E. Hickey provided data showing that 17.2 percent of school system staff was black in 1996, compared with 15.8 percent of the students.

Of the county's 2,583 teachers in October 1997, 12 percent were black, compared with 16.9 percent of its 40,215 students,

according to the latest data from the State Department of Education. The percentage of black teachers has hovered around 12 percent every year since the 1990-1991 school year.

The school board chairman supports Hickey.

"As far as the main contention that we're not hiring minority teachers in an equitable fashion, I think that the data just clearly do not support that proposition," said chairman Stephen Bounds. "Our minority teacher population mirrors our minority student population better than just about anybody in the state."

At a school board meeting Aug. 27, representatives of the civil rights organization said the school system had failed to hire enough black staff members, passed over qualified black candidates for teaching jobs and unfairly demoted an unnamed black assistant principal to a teaching job.

In a position paper, the NAACP said that experienced African-American job applicants were "routinely failing to pass interviews, while recent white college graduates with no experience passed."

Natalie Woodson, chairwoman of the NAACP's education committee, said the group is not appeased by Hickey's response. The organization remains concerned with the overall number of African-Americans being hired and the complaints of applicants who said they have not gotten interviews.

"The correct analogy should be the total number of persons hired vs. the number of African-Americans [hired]," Woodson said. "You can sort of twist numbers and statistics to suit your purposes, but they don't always get to the heart of the issue."

Woodson said the NAACP was disturbed that no African-Americans were hired as maintenance workers last year, and that only four of the 59 food-service workers hired were black. NAACP members pointed out that no black people are employed by the school system as carpenters, plumbers or electricians.

The school system does not dispute that. Bounds said school staff has been asked to take a closer look at that issue and report back to the board.

According to information submitted by the school system to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1994, 17.3 percent of the full-time staff -- including teachers -- was African-American, representing 682 people out of 3,927. The percentage was 17.2 percent in 1996, or 736 African-Americans out of 4,276 employees.

In 1997, the school system hired 363 teachers out of 4,300 applicants. Of those 363, 47 were black, or 12.9 percent. The percentage of minority teachers hired -- including Asian and Hispanic teachers -- has fluctuated between 13.5 percent and 18 percent during the past five years, according to information from the school system's 1997 "Hiring and Separation Report."

There was no breakdown for African-Americans.

"There are white applicants who feel just as neglected," said schools spokeswoman Patti Caplan. "We have thousands of applicants every year."

Regional numbers

With the exception of Baltimore City, where 61.2 percent of the teachers are African-American, the percentage of black teachers Howard County is above that of other school districts in the region, the State Department of Education reports.

Anne Arundel County has 10 percent; Baltimore County, 8.7 percent; Carroll, 0.7 percent; and Harford, 4.5 percent.

"If you use that as a benchmark for institutional racism, then every jurisdiction in the state is far more to be criticized for that than we are," Bounds said.

Caplan and Hickey said the school system doesn't get many African-American job applicants. Hickey said the county has tried recruiting from local historically black colleges such as Morgan State and Howard universities, but they are smaller schools that turn out a small number of graduates. In the case of Howard University, many of its graduates choose to teach in areas in or near the District of Columbia, Hickey said.

Few minority applicants

"We're just not getting a lot of minority applicants," Caplan said. "Those who have outstanding credentials, you realize that all the systems are going to be vying for these same people.

"When we find a strong African-American candidate that we really want, we'll sign them immediately if they'll sign with us. That has proved to be very successful for us in holding onto the ones that are going to get snapped up."

But Woodson said the NAACP has received complaints from African-Americans who have applied for jobs with the school system, only to get no response. Several of those who get interviews are not getting hired, though they have taught elsewhere, Woodson said.

"If you find that you're not hiring sufficient numbers, rather than say, 'We can't find black applicants,' consider some of the black [people] who have applied," Woodson said. "What we get from XTC people is, 'I applied, but I got no response.' "

Woodson said the NAACP would like to see a 15 percent representation of African-Americans in all school-system job categories. The organization did not complain about the makeup of the school board, whose five elected members are white.

"We feel that it needs to be representative across the board and not just clustered in certain areas, which then gives a false impression of the number of African-Americans that are employed," she said.

But Caplan said the school system does not have a numerical goal, other than for the staff to reflect the Howard County community.

NAACP's concerns

The NAACP has other concerns.

According to the NAACP's position paper, a black job applicant was told that her application had been lost. Once it was found, the applicant had to ask repeatedly about the status of her application, the paper said.

"I regret that any applicant would have to experience the frustration with the application process as alleged in the NAACP's position paper," Hickey wrote in his response.

The NAACP also said fewer African-American teachers and administrators were assigned to schools in outlying areas of Howard County, showing "patterns of concentration."

Hickey said those patterns are not by design. Teachers who are wanted at more than one school -- as many black teachers are -- are allowed to choose the one they prefer, Hickey said.

"Many of our African-American teachers do not want to go to the outlying schools where there might be only another one or two African-American staff members and where there might be a relatively small number of [African-American] students," Hickey said.

Hickey said one African-American applicant who was courted by Mount Hebron and Wilde Lake high schools chose to work at Wilde Lake, which is in Columbia. Mount Hebron High School is in Ellicott City.

The school system is considering eliminating the choice option, he said.

Role models

"The white students need to see minority teachers," Hickey said. "We're hiring them for the majority group as well and to see role models of another ethnic group other than just the white teachers on the staff."

While most of the focus has been on hiring African-American staff members, Hickey said the school staff needs to better reflect the county's growing Asian and Hispanic populations as well.

"With regard to other minority groups we haven't scratched the surface," Hickey said. "I think so much of our emphasis has been on African-American staff members, and deservedly so, but we can't ignore the others. We haven't ignored them, it's just that we haven't aggressively sought out candidates where they are."

Pub Date: 9/06/98