Students deserve teachers of minority races in school

It is no secret that Westside High School is not among the most diverse schools in the Omaha area. While that statement is true for the student body it is also true for the administration. Recently, more students have started to take notice to the fact that there is a shortage of diverse educators in our school.

Attending a predominantly white school as a minority is hard enough, but with no teachers of color that relate to the struggles that we face everyday, it becomes increasingly harder. A school is supposed to be a comfortable environment in which students always feel like they have someone to talk to. Expressing concern to white teacher or dean about an issue that deals with race won’t resonate as effectively as it would with a teacher or dean of color.

What kind of message does the school send to its students when the only racially diverse staff that are employed here are cleaning up behind us, serving us lunch and being sent to fetch us from our classes? Representation for us matters, especially at a crucial time in development such as high school. We want to see people who look like us in positions of power and authority. In my two years at this school and my five in the district, I have yet to see an African American, dean, teacher or even a student teacher.

This fact saddens and shocks me. Westside continuously stresses that they do not tolerate discrimination by any means. Those words fall on deaf ears when I walk into school and everywhere I look I only see one race. If I have multiple classes where I am the only black student or have yet to be taught by a black teacher, this shows the hiring system is broken and we need to fix it.

Westside needs to do better by taking into consideration the fact that as they grow into a more diverse school the administration has to grow with it. The movement for a diverse staff has to start somewhere. I have no doubt that there are plenty of educators of color who are also adequately qualified to teach our students. Westside has to be an advocate for this issue and employ people with different backgrounds.

Understand this: I am by no means suggesting that the educators we have now are not capable of teaching us and getting us to learn and retain information. Learning about my heritage, history and experiences my people faced from someone who doesn’t come from the same background and cannot share my perspective is awkward. It leaves me questioning the information I’ve been taught.

Like I’ve stated before, representation for our students does matter. Seeing diverse and educated people in positions of power makes us feel empowered. It shows us that there is no job we cannot do and that there are no people that we cannot work with. We all come to school for one thing and that is education. Education does not see color.