How Affinity Groups Can Help With Bipoc Teacher Support, Retention, And Growth

Our classrooms have become increasingly diverse. Teachers of Color (TOC) make up about 20% of U.S. public school teachers while Students of Color represent about 52% of public school students. It becomes difficult to model affirmative acknowledgement of diversity in the classroom when most of the adults fit into the demographics of white, cisgender, middle class, and female. To help all students, but especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, we must first address the importance of Teachers of Color and the crucial need to support and retain them through having BIPOC affinity groups. This brings about the question: How do affinity groups support BIPOC staff and how can an affinity group resource support future groups? Topics explored in the review of literature include the history of Teachers of Color in the U.S., the challenges TOC face, the benefits of having TOC, how affinity groups support TOC, and examples of affinity groups for TOC. The website designed for this project serves as a resource guide that provides the topics, context, and set up for BIPOC affinity groups for school districts to utilize for their BIPOC staff, particularly Teachers of Color (TOC). While there has been a recent push to hire more TOC to diversify the teaching field, these efforts are rarely accompanied by shifts needed in schools to train and support TOC’s specific needs. Affinity groups meet these needs and serve as a powerful tool to retain TOC