Teacher-trip deal good for students

The state Ethics Commission and the teachers’ union have settled on a suitable middle ground in the battle over teachers’ involvement in arranging and chaperoning off-island trips for students.

In an agreement announced this week, the Hawaii State Teachers Association has accepted an accommodation that will allow teachers to continue running educa- tional field trips without running afoul of the state ethics code.

Teachers can travel free as long as the trip clearly qualifies as educational — and as long as they don’t accept other non-essential benefits that count as an unwarranted gift from the trip sponsor.

The standoff dates back to March 2015, when state Ethics Commission lawyers advised that such programs, organized by teachers in conjunction with tour companies, were unethical. The argument: Teachers, in disseminating marketing materials about the trip to students and families, acted as agents for the travel companies.

The free travel benefit sometimes was supplemented with personal rewards, everything from tablet computers to additional travel. That compounded the problem, according to the commission, because that could be construed as a gift to a state employee exceeding the $200 limit set in the ethics code.

Under this week’s agreement between the commission and the HSTA, teachers are prohibited from accepting anything beyond having their costs covered on the academic tour. That seems fair. Teachers are working with their students on the trip, so having some chaperone service expensed is reasonable, as long as it’s a legitimate educational activity.

The commission has never disputed that the educational trips can be a benefit to public school students, Les Kondo, then the agency’s executive director, said at the time. The argument was that the teachers were in a conflict of interest because the incentives offered to them put them in a position to sell the trips to students and families.

In some cases, there were inducements that were inappropriate. Kondo showed the state Board of Education promotional materials from travel companies that teachers distributed to the students. For example, one handout represented that students who go on the trips get better grades, an assertion that is surely misleading. Teachers should not serve in that kind of marketing role.

One remedy proposed initially was for the tour companies to donate the trips to the state Department of Education and then have teachers apply for the travel credit to chaperone the students.

That would have required the DOE to establish a new oversight process. It could have worked, but the compromise accord seems reasonable and less laborious.

The parties were driven to this solution because HSTA filed suit, and in June the court struck down the finding. Circuit Judge Rhonda Nishimura said that broad advice issued to affect all teachers should have been subject to rulemaking and public input first.

Fortunately, the union and the commission, with Executive Director Daniel Gluck newly at the helm, were able to hammer out an agreement that seems a win-win.

Ethics in government is about ensuring that what employees do is in the fulfillment of their duties, and in the public interest. That focus should not be overcome by financial incentives that serve their own interest, and the interest of profit-making companies.

But that doesn’t mean employees should be discouraged from going the extra mile — literally, in this case.

Privately run and financed travel can be a real enrichment opportunity for students. Teachers are surely unlikely to take on that activity if it means running a deficit for themselves. Making them whole in the deal is the right thing to do.