1. Teach Tomorrow in Oakland/Rogers-Ard, Dabner
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Workshop proposal Submission:
National Association of Alternative Education 2016 Conference
Non-Traditional Teachers/Leaders Changing School Culture strand
Workshop Session
Teach Tomorrow in Oakland: recruiting and retaining local, diverse teachers.
This presentation will highlight lessons learned from Teach Tomorrow in Oakland (TTO), formed
as unique partnership between Mayor Ronald Dellum’s office and the Oakland Unified School District,
committed to recruiting and retaining outstanding teachers who reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity
of our city. TTO uses multi-faceted communication strategies to attract high-quality, prospective teacher
candidates who demonstrate persistence and resilience in their approach to working in an urban school
setting and are committed to the following: ensuring that all students achieve at high levels,
professional development, long-term employment within OUSD, and a long-term commitment to the
Oakland community.
While Nationally based recruiting programs are extremely effective in recruiting young college
graduates into teaching and placing them in some of the district’s hardest to teach classrooms, these
efforts alone have not decreased the need for highly qualified, effective, diverse classroom instructors.
In fact, recruiting college students from across the nation to “serve” in classrooms as part of a
community service requirement has created a revolving door in which new teachers are placed in
classrooms every two or three years. Therefore, the teacher shortage that our nation is currently
experiencing is not one that can be solved through recruitment efforts alone; it is first and foremost a
critical issue of retention.
Given the racial inequality and lack of diversity within the educational system, a substantial
amount of research has documented forms of individual racism in schools manifested in teacher
perceptions, expectations, discipline practices, and interactions with students from diverse backgrounds
(Kuklinski & Weinstein, 2001; Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). The conceptualization of racism as
experienced through direct, vicarious, and trans-generational mechanisms (Harrell, 2000), further
suggests that students of color both experience and are impacted by the racism that is pervasive within
educational settings, and specifically by racism within teacher-student interactions. In such a context of
race and class-based exclusion, collaborative efforts to build sustainable pipelines that develop local
educators are essential. Supporting local, diverse educators who teach for a minimum of five years and
then access leadership opportunities can impact school change at the hiring level and highlights the
importance of developing pipelines of critically conscious educators to counteract unjust classroom
practices and experiences.
Empowering teachers with curricular content knowledge and classroom management skills are
insufficient when teaching diverse student populations; teachers must be culturally competent and
develop the critical understanding of racism, classism, and sexism in order to effectively create
transformative, equitable, rigorous educational experiences for all students; not only those of color.

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To that end, TTO uses critical race theory to frame anti-oppressive education within a district-
based program that purposefully and intentionally recruits local, culturally responsive diverse educators
with a demonstrated commitment to social justice. The program also works to streamline personnel
processes that have historically served as barriers for people of color. Additionally, with federal funding
from the Transition to teach initiative, TTO demonstrates that anti-oppressive programs, if developed in
conjunction with partners that enact social justice values, can be institutionalized, with intense effort, to
produce community-minded educators of color. Now in its sixth year, TTO has data around retention,
effectiveness of our teachers and teacher prep programs, shifts in school culture, and shifts in
recruitment strategies that have been adopted district-wide.
The purpose of this workshop is to share data, lessons learned, and shed light on strategies that
have been successful and those that were less helpful. Because the need for diversity within the
teaching workforce has been well documented (Sleeter, LaVonne, Kumashiro, 2014; Villegas & Irvine,
2010; Epstein, 2005), this presentation will not focus on that need; it is assumed that proponents of
alternative certification and educators in general agree that diverse teachers are needed in our schools.
However, the methods used to recruit and retain those teachers are less clear. Therefore, this
presentation will focus on the following three goals:
1) Presenters will share data and strategies used to recruit local, diverse teacher candidates
2) Presenters will present effective best practices for retaining diverse teachers, and for building the
confidence needed to be effective within classrooms
3) Presenters will discuss barriers to district-wide implementation and suggest strategies to navigate those
barriers
For goal one, presenters will present data compiled over the past six years around best practices for
recruiting local, diverse teachers. In addition to non-traditional recruitment strategies, the notion of
keeping candidates “warm” will be shared. Finally, presenters will show data that confirms a lack of
relevance between teacher-preparation tests and teacher effectiveness in the classroom.
Goal two is at the heart of our presentation; presenters will share strategies developed to retain
teachers of color, culturally competent teachers, most notably the cohort model, monthly meetings,
constant “warm” strategies, celebrations, “Men in the classroom” meetings and other best practices
developed over the past six years. Perhaps the most important innovation was putting a TTO Teacher
Leader system in place by subject area, which allowed for the re-integration of some of TTO’s “older”
teachers, along with the added benefit of having subject and grade-specific pedagogues delivering
coaching and mentoring to newer teachers.
Goal three will focus on the struggle to take these practices from a “program” or “initiative” and move it
into the “way things are accomplished” at the district level. While many programs are now focused on
recruitment and retention, without the last goal to institutionalize practices, when funding ends, so does
the program. Therefore, this goal is extremely important as a cautionary tale and a worthwhile
discussion point for other districts, Universities and programs working diligently to diversify the teaching
workforce.

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In summary, Teach Tomorrow in Oakland (TTO) (www.teachtomorrowinoakland.net) is a
district-based initiative that recruits and retains diverse local educators. Now in its sixth year, TTO has
the data to support retention and recruitment efforts, while also sharing lessons learned about
strategies necessary to implement best practices within the larger institutional framework with an eye
towards sustainability. Target audiences for this workshop are Human Resource administrators, policy
makers, IHE and non-IHE program administrators, faculty, Site Supervisors/Evaluators/Specialists and
Researchers.
References:
Epstein, K. K. (2005). The whitening of the American teaching force: A problem of recruitment or a
problem of racism? Social Justice, 89-102.
Harrell, S. P. (2000). A multidimensional conceptualization of racism-related stress: implications for the
well-being of people of color. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70(1), 42.
Kuklinski, M. R., & Weinstein, R. S. (2001). Classroom and developmental differences in a path model of
teacher expectancy effects. Child development,72(5), 1554-1578.
Sleeter, C. E., La Vonne, I. N., & Kumashiro, K. K. (Eds.). (2014). Diversifying the teacher workforce:
Preparing and retaining highly effective teachers. Routledge.
Tenenbaum, H. R., & Ruck, M. D. (2007). Are teachers' expectations different for racial minority than for
European American students? A meta-analysis.Journal of educational psychology, 99(2), 253.
Villegas, A. M., & Irvine, J. J. (2010). Diversifying the teaching force: An examination of major
arguments. The Urban Review, 42(3), 175-192.