Building on to the Vermont Teacher Diversity Scholarship program, a new partnership with the Vermont Department of Education is working to consider solutions that may help to address Vermont’s lack of educator workforce diversity. Our initial goals include:

• Continue to identify school districts or supervisory unions for which teacher diversity is already identified as a priority, and work with these pilot districts to establish a procedure by which diverse applicants can be identified and channeled to corresponding HR departments more effectively, and then replicate these successes statewide;
• Begin work to educate school boards about the importance of educator diversity, and empower them to undertake diversity recruitment measures themselves;
• Foster more formalized relationships with the career services and/or education departments at colleges and universities throughout New England;
• Explore recruitment of education professionals in other economically depressed areas where unemployment rates are high;
• Explore collaborations with teacher and administrator training and apprenticeship programs in Vermont, creating linkages with VSAC in order for participants to obtain low-cost loans to fund such programs, with loan forgiveness offered from the VTDSP endowment funds; and
• Increase collaborative efforts with other anti-racism or diversity-related agencies and entities in order to create high-quality, cost-effective professional development opportunities for education professionals statewide.

Are you a teacher from a diverse background, looking for work in Vermont?
Click here. We’d like to hear from you.

Are you an Administrator from a VT public school district, wanting more information?
Click here to contact us.