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Community groups urge LA Unified to bolster recruitment and public reporting on Black educators
Summary
Multiple speakers representing Watts of Power and allied groups told the Los Angeles Unified board that the district has lost about 4 percentage points of Black teacher representation over the past decade and urged partnerships and biannual public reporting disaggregated by race to improve recruitment and retention.
Dozens of public commenters at the Los Angeles Unified School District board meeting on Feb. 11 urged the district to deepen efforts to recruit and retain Black teachers and to make related data public.
Dr. Peter Watts, co‑founder and CEO of the Watts of Power Foundation, told the board the district’s share of Black teachers has fallen by roughly 4 percentage points over the last 10 years and said Black teachers “matter for all students, especially for Black students.” He asked the board to “continue their commitment to the recruitment and retention of early career Black educators” and to partner with community organizations to strengthen pipelines.
Other speakers from the same foundation amplified that call. Leat Shiloa, identified as a policy fellow with Watts of Power, recommended the district publicly report, twice a year, recruitment and retention metrics disaggregated by race and ethnicity. Deanto/Dantoine Dixon, a fellow with the foundation’s Village Initiative, said his classroom experience shows that having Black teachers can change student behavior and outcomes: “When someone finally did, he stopped running.”
The public commenters framed their proposals as a mix of programmatic support—mentorship, student‑teaching placements and pathways to national board certification—and transparency around outcomes and retention. Sere Rogers, a teacher resident at Fremont High School, said mentorship and credential pathways are central to keeping educators in the district.
Why it matters: Commenters tied teacher diversity to measurable student outcomes—attendance, dropout rates and achievement—and asked the board to add sustained, public reporting and community partnerships as part of any recruitment strategy. Several speakers also framed the request against the district’s ongoing fiscal challenges, saying investments in these pipelines should remain a priority even amid budget constraints.
What the board did: These requests were delivered during the public comment period; the meeting recessed into closed session on personnel and other matters and later reported multiple personnel actions and expulsions (see separate article). The transcript records the public appeals and the board’s subsequent closed‑session actions, but it does not record a formal response from the board to the specific policy or reporting demands during the Feb. 11 meeting.
Next steps: Commenters asked for concrete commitments—periodic public reporting and formal partnerships—that would be trackable in future board materials. The board did not announce a schedule for those items during the Feb. 11 meeting.
