BUDA (KXAN)—Data from the National Council on Teacher Quality shows while there's more teacher diversity now, it's happening at a slow pace.
This is the case across the country, including in Texas. Districts like Hays Consolidated Independent School District are working to address this with recruitment efforts.
On Tuesday, Ms. Keke Powell led her class in a Hawaiian themed Christmas song and dance.
Powell has been an educator for 10 years, is Polynesian and teaches second grade.
As a multi-award winner with a dominate social media educational platform, she looks for opportunities to share her culture and others with her students in fun ways.
"Kids think it's the coolest thing in the world, because they haven't had those experiences," Powell said. "I think it's important for kids to see themselves."
She said her students adore her, but there aren't a lot of teachers that look like her. In fact, it's not something she saw growing up either.
"There's not a lot of Polynesians in the teacher world," Powell said.
Texas Education Agency (TEA) data shows she's among the less than 1% of Pacific Islander regular classroom teachers here in Texas during the 2023-2024 school year.
That's the lowest percentage of representation across all minority groups in Texas.
There are more Black and Latino teachers, but data shows those groups, too, are still underrepresented.
Research shows teachers of color can produce positive academic, social-emotional and behavioral outcomes for all students, regardless of race.
According to the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), the racial diversity of the teaching workforce is growing at a slower pace than the racial diversity of college-educated adults.
"It is a concern," Ginger Blanchon, director of Human Resources with Hays CISD said. "We just do our best making sure that our campus principals and our hiring supervisors know that you have to look beyond the resume. How can they relate to your student?"
NTCQ said it takes this sort of awareness to improve diversity and hopes its research and diversity dashboard can help guide districts.
Hays CISD told KXAN there are challenges overall right now with teacher recruiting, so it wasn't too alarmed to see new trends showing teacher diversity is slowing.
The district said it works with universities to recruit and is hopeful to continue improving those numbers.
