Brockton has striking racial disparity: Mostly white teachers and mostly students of color

BROCKTON — The racial demographics of Brockton High School's staff and students are strikingly different.

Students of color make up the vast majority of Brockton High School's student body, while just under 12% of the 3,586 students in the building are white.

Meanwhile, less than a third of Brockton High teachers are teachers of color.

According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), roughly 132 teachers at BHS are white while roughly 50 are teachers of color.

BHS has more Black and Hispanic students than white students, and residents like Rahsaan Hall, who organized a standout to support BHS kids in February, called Brockton "the Blackest city in Massachusetts."

"This has been a problem for years and years and years," said Phyllis Ellis, president of the Brockton Area Branch NAACP. "Kids want to see teachers that look like them."

"There is a huge disparity."

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What percentage of Brockton High students and teachers are Black and Hispanic?

According to DESE's enrollment data from last October, 61% of students at Brockton High identify as Black. About 30 teachers, or 17%, identify as Black. While 20% of students identify as Hispanic, 6% of teachers in the building, a total of roughly 11, identify as Hispanic.

Meanwhile, 73% of BHS teachers are white and just 12% of students are white, according to DESE. Put another way, 27% of teachers are non-white compared to the 88% of students who are non-white.

"Brockton High will always have more students of color," Ellis said. "We are in the majority now, but Brockton does not reflect that diversity in the schools."

"We're here, we're in the majority, but what does that mean?" said Ellis.

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A district, state and national problem

This disproportionate trend is reflected across the school district. Data from DESE shows that most of the staff in all Brockton Public Schools, including teachers, paraprofessionals, support staff and administrators, are white.

Across the whole district, there are about 566 staff members of color and 1,448 white staff members. That comes out to roughly 28% non-white staff and nearly 72% white staff. Similar to the high school, students of color make up over 87% of the total Brockton Public Schools student population, while a little over 12% of BPS students are white.

Brockton Public Schools Director of Communications Jordan Mayblum noted that this problem is a national trend.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 79% of public-school teachers across the country in the 2017–18 school year were white, meaning roughly 21% were non-white — an even lower percentage than at Brockton High School.

This school year, nearly 90% of all public-school teachers in Massachusetts are white, while just over 3% are Black according to data from DESE. By contrast, 83% of teachers in Brockton are white and 10% are Black according to DESE. Only 10% of all Massachusetts teachers are teachers of color, but students of color make up 47% of all Massachusetts enrollment.

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Diverse hiring and layoffs

High quality teachers are in low supply but in high demand across the country. But in the months before and throughout the 2021-2022 school year, Brockton hired over 400 new staff members, roughly 43% of whom were people of color, according the BPS department of equity, diversity and inclusion (DEI). In just 2021 alone, almost one-third of certified staff hired by the district identified as non-white.

Then in May 2023, BPS sent out over 130 pink slips to teachers and staff around the district. Many of those laid off were the new staff members hired in 2021, since they were the most recently hired and had the least seniority.

"They hire good teachers, but then there are layoffs and they are the first ones to go," Ellis said. "The problem has improved over the years, but it's still not where it's supposed to be."

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton High students are mostly Black, but most teachers are white