Third in a series.

Across the United States, the number of minorities is growing. In the next 25 to 30 years, minorities will be the majority.

Locally, minority growth can be seen in the four school corporations.

"The primary area for us in terms of an increase would be within the Hispanic population," said Warsaw Schools Superintendent Dr. Lee Harman. "We noticed that through the English as a Second Language program."

Dr. Karen Boling, Tippecanoe Valley Schools Superintendent, said the number of minority students in her school corporation has not been increasing.

"Actually," she said, "this year we've seen a decrease. This is particularly true in our minority language students."

Whitko Superintendent Dr. Bill Worl said, "We're not seeing any significant increase in minority students."

For the Wawasee School Corp., Superintendent Mark Stock said, "What I can tell you is our population who qualify under the migrant program has decreased. We haven't seen a decrease, though, in our minority students."

Under the migrant program, federal funding is available for schools to help pay for the educational costs of students who moved into the area during the last three years because of agriculture-related jobs.

Warsaw School Corp. had 277 minority students during the 1991-92 school year, according to information released by the Indiana Department of Education. By 1996-97, the number of minority students had swollen to 460. TVSC has gone from 40 minority students in 1991-92 to 88 students in 1996-97. Wawasee schools increased from 162 in 1991-92 to 174 in 1996-97, while Whitko School Corp.'s minority population expanded from 41 to 61 in the same five-year period, according to the IDE information.

As the number of minority students increases in local school corporations, there is a growing need to hire more minority teachers and administrators.

"The advantage is that it is more like America. This country has a large growing minority population," said Herman Hudson, director of minority achievers program and coordinator of minority student recruitment at Indiana University.

Information provided by IDE indicated there was only one minority certified employee in the Warsaw School Corp. and one in the Wawasee School Corp. from 1993-96. There were no minority certified employees in the TVSC and Whitko School corporations. While each of the four local school superintendents said they wanted to hire more minorities, it's not as easy as they would like.

"We would welcome the opportunity to employ more teachers from the minority community," Harman said. "Those folks are in demand across the nation."

Boling said, "The community lacks some of the things minorities would like to have available to them."

Worl said, "We are always looking for the best possible teachers and we would like that to be representative of the student body."

Hudson said there are several things schools and communities could do to find and attract more minority teachers to their areas.

"The first thing to do is get in touch with the teachers and educators association at the local colleges and universities and see who the minority students are coming out," he said.

Hudson said the school board and administrators could go to the local colleges and universities and try to recruit those earning degrees. Once at the colleges, potential minority teachers should be sold on the fact that teaching in the prospective community would be advantageous to their careers.

School boards, administration and the community have to give the minority teachers a welcome reception, he said. Minorities will not move into a community where their careers or ways of life would be hampered. Within the community, residents also need to be receptive to a growing number of minorities.

Administrators in the Wawasee school system have attended recruiting fairs in an effort to find minority teachers, Stock said. He said there is not a large number of applicants out there and the overall responsibility is to find the best person for the job.

Hudson said, "I would also check communities that are not far away that have minority teachers. I would check Fort Wayne or South Bend to see if there is an interest by some minority teachers to teach in a challenging community, see if they want to move."

Another suggestion Hudson made to attract minority teachers to an area was financial incentives.

"You've got to break the ice someway," he said.

Because of the growing number of minority students, the school corporations are trying to incorporate diversity in their day- to-day operations in the schools.

"We've been addressing that in our corporation over the last few years," Stock said.

All faculty members in the Wawasee schools will have to attend a workshop on diversity in the next few years. Some teachers have already undergone a training program about diversity.

Many teachers in the Warsaw corporation also have undergone staff training on diversity, Harman said. The schools also work with students to make them aware of sensitivity issues.

"We're having to try to address the whole issue of diversity," Harman said.

Boling said, "We do not do diversity training per se," but, she said, the school corporation deals with the issues. "We're trying to teach the kids at a young age to appreciate diversity."

Worl said he believes Whitko Schools does do diversity training.

Each superintendent was asked to rank their corporation on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the best based on how the corporation deals with minority issues and concerns and how they make sure they address cases of discrimination.

"We certainly have room to grow, but we are trying," Harman said, giving Warsaw schools a 7 or 8.

Boling said, "I'd rank us really high. I'd probably give us a nine or 10. We haven't had to test that, though."

"Let's go with 10 because we don't have a problem with it and we don't anticipate any," Worl said.

Stock gave Wawasee schools an eight.

"I think the key words are 'dealing with it,'" he said. "It's not that a school doesn't have problems, but how they handle their problems. There's probably no place around that has dealt with as much racial problems than Wawasee." [[In-content Ad]]