BUFFALO, N.Y. — Kids look up to teachers and principals, but the Buffalo Teachers Federation says for minority students in charter schools, there aren't enough teachers they can relate to.

"You're going to work just as hard, but there's a message that gets out that, 'Oh my God. Maybe I can't be a teacher or maybe I can't be an administrator,'" said Phil Rumore, BTF president.

Statistics compiled by New York State United Teachers, and released by BTF, show that county-wide, 75 percent of charter school students are minorities, but only 19 percent of principals and assistant principals are minorities. In Buffalo Public Schools, the gap is smaller, where 43 percent of principals and assistant principals are minorities.

"It's not as diverse as we would like it to be. The ideal would be if our staff mirrored our student population. Our student’s population is very diverse. We have 60 percent African American, 20 percent Hispanic, 20 percent Caucasian," said Catherine Oldenburg, commandant, WNY Maritime Charter School.

As for teacher diversity, 86 percent of BPS educators and 89 percent of charter school teachers are white. Charter schools say the problem comes down to money. They say they get two-thirds less funding from the state than public schools and, therefore, can't pay their teachers and administrators as much.

"The funding formula from the state has been frozen for years. Now, we did get some money from the state last year, but it's not a sustainable promise that we can raise teacher salaries because we are not sure that it will be a sustained revenue source," said Oldenburg.

Rumore said, "You can't just say ‘nobody applied.’ It's your responsibility to say, ‘I have to go out and find some ways because there must be something wrong to have these kinds of figures.’"

Both Buffalo Public Schools and Charter schools say they have created initiatives to recruit more minority teachers and administrators, by partnering with local colleges to identify and recruit potential candidates.