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As schools prepare to return for a new semester, Cambridge Public Schools officials presented their plans to improve staff recruitment and retention and increase racial diversity among teachers at a Cambridge School Committee meeting Tuesday.

Tuesday marked the School Committee’s first substantial meeting of the year, following a brief ceremony Monday where two new members — Elizabeth C.P. Hudson and Richard Harding Jr., who served on the committee until 2017 and narrowly won back his seat in November — were sworn in and officially joined the body.

The presentation, led by CPS human resources officials, comes after the School Committee gave CPS Superintendent Victoria Greer an overall “needs improvement” rating on her annual evaluation in July, citing concerns around human resources, hiring processes, and “fill rates” for CPS staff positions.

Rasheeda Abdul-Musawwir, the CPS director of talent acquisition and management, said on Tuesday that HR had launched weekly vacancy and fill reports to track school staffing.

“By tracking that data we were able to ultimately meet our goal of having 90 percent of our Unit A positions filled by September 1st,” Abdul-Musawwir said, referring to the bargaining unit for teachers under their union agreement with CPS.

Chief Talent Officer Corey Dotson said that though “last-minute” teacher and staff resignations “impacted us tremendously” this past semester, Cambridge still performed better than nearby school districts.

“We were the best in the area,” Dotson said.

Dotson also shared data from a survey of CPS staff this past semester to better understand employee conditions. Although 88 percent of staff said they were “very likely to stay” for the 2024-2025 school year, according to Dotson, the survey also highlighted workload and compensation as critical and recurring staff concerns.

Dotson said the three-year contract ratified in December by the School Committee and Cambridge Education Association — which includes a 17.25 percent pay raise for teachers — would address concerns raised in the survey.

“We’re hopeful that the new contract alleviates some of the pressures felt by educators in these two particular areas,” he said.

The officials also shared data regarding efforts to increase staff and teacher diversity, which they said was a priority for the upcoming school year.

Although more than 60 percent of Cambridge students identified as non-white, only 25 percent of teachers identify as non-white, according to CPS data.

“Research shows that all students perform better academically and socially when having teachers that they can identify with and see themselves in,” Dotson said.

The 2023-2024 school year showed a 4 percent “increase in diverse hires” compared to 2022-2023, according to the presentation, although Abdul-Musawwir noted that less teachers were hired overall than in past years. However, still only 28 percent of hired teachers identified as non-white.

“I was someone who benefited from having a teacher of color and I know the impact that they can have,” said Dotson. “We are going to continue to push forward with hiring individuals who actually reflect our student population.”

Abdul-Musawwir said HR’s “most significant change” to improve staff diversity was a shifted focus toward cultivating CPS’ current non-teacher workforce. She specifically highlighted the Educator Pathway Program, a pilot program offering financial support for current CPS employees to attain a masters degree in education.

The officials also spoke about changes to the hiring process, including centralizing hiring onto one online platform and sharing a formal job offer and salary with applicants during the recruitment process, which Abdul-Musawwir said “makes a huge difference.”

Lastly, Dotson said the district would soon make administrative guidelines for the CPS hiring process publicly available. This past year, parents and staff at the Morse School and the Fletcher Maynard Academy raised complaints about a lack of transparency in the hiring process for principals, according to the School Committee’s evaluation of Greer.

“That’s coming. It will be published. That’s not something that the district has ever done,” Dotson said. “But we are committed to ensuring that everyone is aware of the hiring process moving forward.”

—Staff Writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.