More than 20 percent of Indianapolis Public Schools students are Hispanic. Yet the district has no Hispanic principals.
Challengers for IPS school board, and three incumbents who hope to keep their seats after the Nov. 4 election, said in radio interviews this week that they’d like to reduce that discrepancy. The district’s only Latino school assistant principal was let go in May.
WTLC’s “Afternoons with Amos” radio host Amos Brown said a lack of administrative diversity in a district with a growing Hispanic student population is an important issue in the election, and asked candidates what they’d do to “make sure administrators reflect the new reality of diversity in IPS.”
The candidates appeared on Tuesday and Wednesday on Brown’s show and discussed issues ranging from partnering with charter schools to campaign finance.
“There’s definitely some diversity issues we need to talk about,” said school board president Annie Roof, who has four challengers running against her. “We need to do whatever it takes. It’s a growing population and I’d love to see more Hispanic leaders in the district.”
Check out Chalkbeat’s interactive election tracker to read the rest of the IPS school board candidates’ views on how to best serve IPS’s growing Hispanic population.