Most Blacks in Low-Rung School Jobs

Rights Activists Will Monitor Officials' Attempt to Better Reflect Student Body

Blacks are well represented in Anne Arundel's public school workforce, but more work as custodians than teachers, according to an internal school-system document that has circulated among Annapolis civil rights leaders.

"It's a clarion call for action," said Carl O. Snowden, an aide to County Executive Janet S. Owens (D) and a longtime civil rights leader in the county.

Blacks make up nearly 23 percent of the county's student body but only 8 percent of the teaching staff. The school system employs 1,360 blacks, but the largest group, -- 455 -- works as custodians. The county has a comparatively large number of black principals and assistant principals. But only one African American, Les Mobray, is part of Interim Superintendent Nancy Mann's executive staff. Mobray is acting director of student discipline and safety.

The county school board includes one black member and one Hispanic member, both of whom expressed dismay last week at the racial data.

"It's abominable. It's reprehensible," said Eugene Peterson, who is black. "But it's not basically the fault of any one individual."

Board member Enrique Melendez called the data "alarming." Hispanics account for 5 percent of students in Anne Arundel but 1 percent of employees. There is one Hispanic principal.

Ken Nichols, acting deputy superintendent of schools, said the school system works hard to recruit minority educators and administrators but is hobbled by a comparatively low pay scale. Other counties can offer higher starting salaries to teachers and can offer raises to lure rising stars away from Anne Arundel.

"If you're sitting in Anne Arundel, and you're a black principal or assistant principal, you're suddenly very marketable to other counties that pay 10 or 20 percent more," he said.

School board members this month picked Kevin Maxwell, who is white, to be the next superintendent. He beat out two other finalists, one of whom was black. The county has had only one black superintendent, Carol S. Parham, whose tenure ended in 2002.

Snowden said local black leaders will monitor Maxwell's progress toward making the school-system workforce more racially representative of the students served. The new schools chief will start work in July, pending contract negotiations.

Few Maryland school systems have workforces that mirror their students. Blacks make up 38 percent of Maryland students but only 22 percent of professional staff in the school systems, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education. In Montgomery County, the student body is 23 percent black and the professional staff is 14 percent black. In Prince George's County, blacks make up 76 percent of students and 58 percent of professionals.

Snowden said Anne Arundel officials provided racial breakdowns by job category in recent weeks at the request of civil rights leaders as a part of negotiations toward equity in the school system.

In September, the school board signed a legal agreement with civil rights leaders that requires the school system to attain the same performance goals for black students as for all other students. The agreement does not include language about the racial composition of staff, but the issue emerged during meetings held since the agreement was struck, Snowden said.

Snowden said the selection of a minority as superintendent in Anne Arundel "would have been a surprise" to black leaders; Parham's hire was "a fluke," he said, because she first took the job on a temporary basis to replace an administrator who was under investigation. The finalists for the job this spring included Dana Bedden, a black superintendent from suburban Philadelphia who had also been a principal in the District. Many people who met Bedden said he was their second choice after Maxwell, a well-liked community superintendent in Montgomery.