Johnson City Schools’ Committee for Equity recently reported to the Board of Education on their work to increase diversity and equity in the school system.
When the committee first met several years ago, they identified four major areas where Johnson City Schools needed to focus their efforts toward increasing diversity and equity. These categories, as presented to the board by the schools’ Director of Human Resources Lee Patterson, included leadership, professional development, relationships and curriculum.
“We’re [now] more aware of… the fact that we do need to increase our minority representation in our teachers and administration to reflect our student population,” said Patterson.
Efforts to address deficits in leadership, professional development and relationships include active recruitment of minority teachers and administrators, staff training on diversity issues, and an increase in interactions between members of different cultures.
“Unfortunately, as with a lot of districts here, we just don’t have a lot of minority candidates for teachers,” said Dr. David Timbs who is a curriculum supervisor for Johnson City schools.
According to Patterson, Johnson City Schools are working with First Tennessee Development District to market the area to minority candidates so that they will consider coming to live and teach here. She also said that they are partnering with Man Up Teacher Fellowship to recruit quality male teachers and role models for students.
This past summer, school administration and staff throughout the system participated in a book study of “Caste: The Origins of our Discontent” and other books relating to racial and social issues.
Johnson City Schools will also be introducing a new diversity module which is to be completed every year by administrators and staff. This new module will offer improvements to what is currently used and will feature a quiz at the end to encourage the retention of information.
In talking about diversity issues and equity, Patterson said, “I don't think there’s ever going to be a fix; I think it’s always gonna be a work in progress. I wish we could fix it but what we can do is just move forward.”
Johnson City Schools are working to bring equity and inclusion to their curriculum in several different ways. Timbs was able to speak directly to a few specific efforts including the diversification of library materials and the introduction of an African American History elective for high schoolers.
“We have a belief,” said Timbs, “that children encounter diversity on a regular basis in their interactions with others at home, at school or around their neighborhood, and our school libraries want to make sure that we’re taking the time to secure the materials that reflect all of the different students we have in Johnson City Schools.”
The schools were able to use some extra money in their budget during Covid to expand library collections throughout the system. According to Timbs, all of the books in the schools’ collections have been vetted by school librarians and adhere to state standards of what is age appropriate.
“We’ve really made an effort to diversify the types of literature that our students are reading, so that they are reading writings from authors of very diverse backgrounds… and when we’re looking at a lot of our world literature, we ensure that we are including authors from a very diverse background,” said Timbs.
Johnson City Schools are working to develop a new library services manual which will unify and direct the individual schools as they continue to work toward diversity in their library collections. In accordance with state legislation, all school library collections will be listed online for parents to view.
The library also works to promote the celebration of various heritage and history months throughout the school year. This includes Hispanic Heritage month in September, Black History month in February and more.
“We really believe as librarians that it's important that our books in our collections build cultural bridges,” said Timbs.
Timbs also spoke about the new African American History class that was introduced at Science Hill in 2020. This class discusses the historical experience of African Americans from the early 1600s to the present day. According to Timbs, the class dives deeper into the African American experience than regular history classes do and has an added focus on black excellence.
According to Timbs, the current teacher of this class goes the extra mile to “incorporate into class the contributions of African Americans to Johnson City and Washington County” often with help from the Langston Center.
Timbs said that he is pleased to see the students’ response to this class and he hopes that it will continue to increase in popularity.
The Committee for Equity’s goals, as presented to the Board of Education, were included in the new Five Year Plan that the board approved on January 6, 2022.
