Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 released its employee demographic trends from 2019 to 2024, showing an increase of 5% in faculty of color.
The “2019-2024 Employee Demographics and Retention Trends” was presented during the Aug. 22 Board of Education meeting as an information item, with no action needing to be taken.
Due to that increase of faculty of color, the gap between the goal of the district to have 35% of overall faculty narrowed from 13% in 2019-2020 to 6% in 2023-24, according to the presentation, given by Roxana Sanders, assistant superintendent of human resources, and Janel Bishop, director of employee relations and recruitment.
“Progress is slow, but it is steady and so for that I applaud the work,” said board president Tom Cofsky.
In the new district’s strategic plan, adopted by the board with a vote of 5-1 during the April 25 board meeting, the district hopes to increase workforce diversity and representation of faculty of color to 35% by August 2028.
According to the comparative demographic student and faculty data provided for the 2019-2020 school year, 57% of students were white, 18% were Black, 13% were Hispanic, 8% were multi-racial and 4% were Asian American or Pacific Islander. In terms of faculty, 76% were white, 11% Black, 8% Hispanic and 5% Asian American or Pacific Islander.
During the 2019-20 school year, there was a -7% difference between faculty and student representation for Black students and a -5% difference between faculty and student representation for Hispanic students. White faculty surpassed white students by 19%.
For the 2024-25 school year, the comparative demographics for student and faculty showed 54% of students are white, 16% are Black, 16% are Hispanic, 10% multi-racial and 4% Asian American or Pacific Islander.
White faculty make up 71%. The remainder were Black, 12%; Hispanic, 11%; multi-racial, 1%; Asian American or Pacific Islander, 5%.
The differences between faculty and student representation for Black students was -4%, a 3% improvement from 2019. For the 2024-25 school year, there is a -5% difference in representation for Hispanic students and faculty, -9% for multi-racial students, and 1% for Asian American or Pacific Islander students.
“This is very helpful in providing a long-term view of trends and showing how we are moving the needle for some of us who have been around for a long time,” Cofsky said.
According to the 2023 Illinois Report Card, the white student population has continued to decrease, going from 56.4% in 2021 to 52.5% in 2023, while percentages of student population for Blacks and Hispanics continues to grow.
In 2021, 18.1% of students at OPRF were Black compared to 19.8% in 2023 while in 2021, 13.1% of students at OPRF were Hispanic compared to 14.6% in 2023.
Board member Mary Anne Mohanraj inquired about how the district works to recruit from teacher education programs from universities, including University of Illinois-Chicago.
Recruitment services are in effect at various teacher education programs both in state and out of state, Sanders said.
However other options, such as internships or certain pathways, can be hard to navigate as the district simply does not have the openings to contract new teachers all the time.
“We don’t have enough positions to say that we will provide financial assistance and you have to sign an agreement that you will come work at the district because we don’t have those vacancies,” Sanders said. “We have a limited number of teaching positions that we fill this year.”
Retention rates for the high school were also shared.
According to the data provided, retention rates for both “faculty” and “faculty of color” have increased from 2020-21 to 2023-24, going from 95% for faculty and 89% for faculty of color to 96% for both.
Retention rates for support staff of color saw an increase from 2020-21 to 2023-24, going from 89% to 95%, a 6% increase.
Part of the adopted strategic plan included improving employee retention with a “specific focus on increasing the retention rate of support staff of color to 90%.”
Overall employee of color retention rates increased from 87% during the 2020-21 school year to 94% for 2023-24.
Sanders said the district has done a lot of work holding focus groups as well as conducting “staying interviews” for first- and second-year teachers asking for feedback in hopes of identifying problems early.
Suggestions to help improve the district’s mentoring program have also been taken, Sanders said.
According to the agenda item, at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, the retention rate for support staff of color is 95%, an increase of 13% from the 2023-24 school year.
