Sustaining Our Diminishing Teachers of Color in Urban and Suburban Schools

This chapter emphasizes the importance of implementing culturally competent recruitment and retention practices, which suburban schools and systems can use to ensure that all students have a well-trained and high-quality teacher of color. Changes in teachers' expectations for student success and strategies in managing administrative and behavioral tasks are all required of all novice teachers. Methods of recruitment, strategies of organization management, and student demographics should be factors in supporting the approaches to implement culturally competent policy change, impacting the outcomes for teachers of color and the student's they serve. A positive organizational culture to include culturally responsive instructional leadership, adequate teacher salary, and critical professional development are determinants for sustaining high-quality teachers of color not only for students of color but for all learners. An emphasis on valuing the cultural identity of teachers of color in suburban schools will be emphasized as a preventative measure for the othering of teachers of color.