Nicole Myers is the kind of teacher many private schools say they want.
Myers will start her first teaching job at the Andrews School this fall, becoming one of the school's first black teachers. Last year, Andrews had only one minority faculty member, but this year the school will have seven.

Myers says she chose the Willoughby school, which has an enrollment that is about one-third minority, because she felt welcomed. "They said, 'We want you because of who you are,' " said Myers, a former teaching assistant at Union Theological Seminary in New York. "They really respected my difference."

When Myers decided to move to Northeast Ohio to join her fiance, a lot of schools were interested in her as a teaching candidate. While private schools in the area say they have increased their minority enrollment over the past few decades, they are searching for and competing for minority teachers and administrators.

"We need to direct talented young people of color to work in education," said John Farber, who heads Old Trail School in Bath Township. "Public schools have been more aggressive, and some independent schools need to wake up."

Earlier this year, the Ohio Association of Independent Schools developed a diversity committee with branches in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati to address the issue. The association also circulated brochures in the spring featuring private schools' minority teachers as a recruitment tool to attract more minority teachers.

Even schools with high percentages of minority students still lack minority faculty.

At St. Jerome School on Cleveland's East Side, nearly 60 percent of students are minorities. Principal Meg Cosgriff says the use of vouchers has increased the diversity among her students in kindergarten through eighth grade. But the school has only one minority teacher.

"I've been hiring teachers here for three years, and I've only had one minority applicant," Cosgriff said.

That applicant went to another school for a higher salary. On average, the pay at Catholic schools is about half that at public schools, Cosgriff says.

Nationally and in Ohio, minorities make up about 11 percent of the faculty at private schools. According to the National Education Association, 13 percent of all teachers are minorities.

Gene Batiste of the National Association of Independent Schools, based in Washington, says the push for diversity in private schools began about 30 years ago.

At Hawken School, which has campuses in Gates Mills and Lyndhurst, school head James Berkman says that private schools are some of the few places where integration is still happening. People tend to move into communities where they look like their neighbors, and public schools reflect that, he says.

"We're one of the few places that does this," Berkman says about integration. "Public schools are becoming homogenous."

But some are skeptical.

Wornie Reed, professor of sociology and urban studies at Cleveland State University, cautions that while the private-school diversity push may be picking up, it's unlikely to have a big effect. Only about 11 percent of the nation's children attend private schools, according to the National Association of Independent Schools.

A report released this summer shows the integration success some schools boast of is not widespread. The report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University says most private schools are not integrated and that religious schools are more segregated than non-religious schools.

At Andrews School, 18 percent of students come from abroad and 15 percent are black. But parent Brenda Moss of Cleveland is glad that Andrews also will have six more minority faculty members this fall. Her 14-year-old daughter, Jessica, who is one of the school's black students, has had very little exposure to minority teachers.

"You have to think about what type of message it sends," Moss said. "I'm sure the kids wonder about this. Are there no minority teachers that are good enough to teach there?"

Batiste, of the national independent school group, says if schools can't find enough minority teachers, they should grow their own by promoting teaching among their own students.

"Historically, independent schools have produced CEOs and diplomats," he said.

"We haven't promoted our own profession."

It's a struggle to get minority teachers to see how private schools are changing, he added.

"Some prospective teachers don't view the independent school world as inclusive, as we are striving to be," he said.

But that alone isn't enough, according to Myers, the new teacher at Andrews.

School heads have to get their staffs as well as students to appreciate and respect differences in order to recruit and retain minority teachers, she says.

"If students of color don't have a good experience in their schools, then they won't go back" to teach, said Myers, a graduate of a private school in Massachusetts.

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