DEI Hiring: Connecticut State Department of Education

The Connecticut State Department of Education’s document Creating a District Plan to Increase the Racial, Ethnic and Linguistic Diversity of Your Educator Work states that the guidebooks are intended to aid in the development and implementation of a Minority Teacher Recruitment (MTR) plan. These documents are meant to assist districts in complying with Public Act 18-34 (Minority Teacher Recruitment and Retention).

The document’s appendices include a self-assessment tool for “recruitment, hiring and selection” which prompts districts to evaluate how much the professional staff “reflects the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of students served.” “Sample evidence” states the “ratio of students of color to teacher/administrators/ central office staff of color; percentage of teachers/administrators/central office personnel who live in town compared with out of town; number of languages spoken by professional staff.”

The self-assessment tool also suggests districts have a “visible profile that articulates goals for increasing the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of the workforce.” It then provides “sample evidence” that suggests the district use “specific short- and long-term goals for hiring and selecting a diverse educator workforce; data showing hiring funnel and percentage of diverse applicants who apply, interview and are hired vs. non-White applicants.”

The same section also suggests that districts offer “incentives (e.g. gift cards, one-time stipends) for referrals of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse candidates leading to a successful hire” and offer “incentives (e.g., pay increases, stipends, housing assistance, affinity groups) likely to attract racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse candidates to seek employment in the district.”

Another self-assessment section titled “Selecting and Hiring” suggests that districts utilize “resume and interview procedures, checklists, and/or protocols that assess cultural responsiveness, and promote an equity mindset” and “adopts policies and procedures that ensure hiring practices prioritize candidates who demonstrate high levels of cultural responsiveness.”

The document also provides districts a tool titled “Six Domains for Culturally Responsive Hiring Strategies At A Glance” which promotes the use of Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack and a video titled Implicit bias and microaggressions.