Botchway will focus on retaining employees of color in Iowa City schools

IOWA CITY - As part of a new equity plan due this spring, the Iowa City Community School District hopes to more than double the proportion of its employees who are people of color by 2019.

The real challenge, according to the district's new equity and staffing director, could be not reaching that level, but maintaining it.

About 7 percent of district administrators, certified staff and support staff were people of color in 2013-14, said Lyndsee Detra, a human resources specialist with the district. Iowa City administrators hope to increase that to 15 percent by the 2019-20 school year, according to district spokesperson and chief human resources officer Chace Ramey.

Kingsley Botchway, an Iowa City Council member whom the district hired last week, said Monday that support through mentoring programs will be key to retaining new employees and sustaining a diverse staff.

'People have to feel attached to what they're doing in order to stay,” Botchway said. 'If we get to 15 percent within three years, but after five years it's back down to 4 percent, it's not going to matter.”

Botchway, who moved to Iowa City in 2007 to attend law school at the University of Iowa, said a mentoring program could have helped him in his first year here. The district will find out in January if it has received a state teacher leadership grant that would support a mentoring program.

'I came in, and the first year, I was planning on moving,” Botchway said. 'If I would have had (a mentor), it would have been a lot different.”

Hiring former Iowa City students - especially minorities - as teachers could help the district retain more employees, said Brian Kirschling, the vice president of the Iowa City school board.

'If we can have individuals who are interested in teaching and who are familiar with the community, that's a long-term solution to our problem,” Kirschling said.

Botchway said he also will make it a priority to engage community members early and often, through social media and 'going to as many meetings as possible.”

'This is a very smart and diverse community,” Botchway said. 'It's going to be very important to see that the people in the community are involved from the front end (in the district's equity plan).”

Botchway said he does not feel he is in an awkward position after a board discussion last week before the 5-2 vote to hire him in which board member Orville Townsend questioned his qualifications and the fairness of the district's hiring process. Botchway will now oversee that hiring process.

'It was a very uncomfortable feeling,” Botchway said. 'However, I think those board members did what they're supposed to do. You can't really discuss equity and fairness without having that open discussion.”

'I'm going to be at the forefront of trying to find out their concerns,” he added.

Townsend did not respond to requests from comment, but board President Chris Lynch said Botchway has the board's support.

'We debate things, we take votes and we move forward together,” Lynch said.

Kirschling said he would like to see the board involved earlier in future 'high-level hires.”

'At this point the board isn't really included in the hiring process until it gets to the end,” Kirschling said. 'I think there's potential changes to be made there.”

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