Education
A WXXI News investigation finds that local districts have a severe lack of diversity on teaching staffs. Five public school districts have zero African-American teachers on staff; four districts have just one, according to the numbers from the 2015-16 school year. Candice Hudson is the only African-American teacher in the Hilton school district. All 393 of her colleagues are white. We visited Hudson to find her reading to her elementary school students; she teaches English as a New Language for grades three through six. Hudson loves working with the kids, and they seem to share the sentiment. But occasionally, there are awkward moments. "Living in Hilton, they don't see a lot of people of color, so they wanted to touch my skin color, make sure it wasn't rubbing off," she said. "And it was just innocence on their part. They've never seen people like me. The last thing is, 'Can I touch your hair?' I get that a lot.” Hudson spent the first eight years of her career teaching in Perth Amboy