The general makeup of teachers at University Prep does not fully reflect the diversity of the student body. 43.7% of the student body is made up of people of color, whereas 35% of Uprep’s staff/faculty identify as POC. Students of color question UPrep’s hiring practices due to what they call a lack of representation.

Senior Paris Buren, leader of the Black Student Union, has attended UPrep since sixth grade. In her seven years at UPrep, she has rarely felt represented by her teachers in the classroom. 

“Attending this school for so long, I’ve sort of become numb to it,” Buren said.

Buren feels as though POC students at UPrep have never been properly represented in our school’s faculty and staff. Buren is not alone. 

“They are trying, but their attempts are not really successful. I just really wish that I could see some changes. The teachers who are Latine at University Prep usually teach Spanish. I do not take Spanish so I rarely interact with them,” Ashley Pablo Trujillo said.

Pablo Trujillo is a freshman as well as a member of the school’s Latine/Latinx Student Union. Pablo Trujillo believes that the lack of Latine teachers outside of language courses is the root of why a lot of Latine students do not feel represented. Adriana Hernandez, 12th -grader and co-leader of the LSU, agrees with Pablo Trujillo.

“It would be great to have more Latine history and English teachers, science would also be great too. There are times in History where we are discussing topics like immigration and Latine culture and I feel like being taught those topics from a Latine teacher and perspective would be great. The Latine language teachers are great, but we often have to meet with them outside of class,” Adrianna Hernandez said. 

E-Chieh Lin is both the Director of Diversity & Community and Director of Hiring here at UPrep. Lin states why “Director of Hiring” was added to her job title.

“The add-on to my job title was for our school to show, and not just show, but actually do the work in being able to hire more staff and faculty of color,” Lin said.

Lin started working at Uprep seven and a half years ago. She shared that during her first year at this predominantly white institution, 21% of Uprep’s faculty and staff were people of color, today it is 35%. Despite the evident growth, E-Chieh adds that the improvements may not be visible to students as the majority of the people represented in the percentages do not interact with students on a day-to-day basis. 

“I validate their statements because it is true. They may see staff members of color in the hallways, but that’s different from being in a classroom with them. Students who are black or identify as latine don’t have as many teachers who represent their racial identity,”  Lin said.

Muna Hassan is a member of the BSU at UPrep. Hassan, among other affinity group members, questions the efforts being made by Uprep after actively expressing her concerns to Joel Sohn, Director of the Upper School, and not liking the outcome. 

“BSU has had meetings with Joel and we have shared that we wanted more black teachers who weren’t PE teachers. This year we had a lot of new hires and we have not seen any big changes,” Hassan said. 

During the 2020-2021 school year, Uprep’s upper school had 3 black faculty members. As of this school year, there was not a decrease or increase in the number of black faculty members.

Lin believes that efforts to hire more teachers of color are important, but it will not happen overnight as there are many layers to this big issue. One of the layers was pay inequality.

“I know that many people who are POC were paid a lot less than they should have been before Ronnie got here,” Lin said.

Head of School Ronnie Codrington-Cazeau started working at UPrep during the 2020-2021 school year. Codrington-Cazeau explains how the prior pay gap has contributed to the school’s struggle of hiring more staff and faculty members of color in the past.

“My initial reaction to the gap was just, why? Whilst looking into this issue I realized how it tends to mirror the overarching problem in the United States surrounding people of color and college. After taking all these overarching problems into consideration we have learned to compensate our faculty members of color to close the gap,” Codrington-Cazeau said. 

Codrington-Cazeau believes that in order to meet the needs of strong POC applicants, University Prep needs to acknowledge the effects of issues taking place outside of UPrep. 

“A lot of these people of color are coming out of college and university with thousands of student loans to pay off. These people usually do not have their parents to rely on to pay off these loans. ” Codrington-Cazeau said.

Ronnie Codrington-Cazeau anticipates an apparent change in the diversity of our staff and faculty as Uprep considers the impacts of student debt and racial wealth inequality.

“Taking this into consideration we expect improvement in our future hiring process and overall diversity here at Uprep,” Codrington-Cazeau said.