Give teachers incentives to stay

In August, when doors to Hawaii’s public schools swing open for the 2018-19 year, it’s likely that a scramble will be on to fill hundreds of teacher vacancies with emergency hires.

This now-annual influx of non-credentialed instructors working toward a teaching degree and substitute teachers, who may or may not have stepped into a K-12 classroom since graduating from high school, makes for an inauspicious start of the year in many schools across the state.

Even if each emergency hire proves to have high aptitude for the profession, these fill-ins lack the know-how acquired through completion of a teacher education degree program. They’re simply less prepared than credentialed faculty to preside over a classroom. The upshot is that students get short-changed.

In recent years, the state Department of Education’s 5-year retention rate for teachers has hovered at about 50 percent. The problem is not exclusive to Hawaii, of course. But the challenges our DOE grapples with are exacerbated by concerns about how to make an entry-level salary and the high cost of living in the islands pencil out.

Since 2010, the annual count of public schools teachers quitting their jobs here and leaving the state has bounced up and down, but mostly up. According to the latest figures, the exit of 411 teachers in 2016-17 marks an 84 percent increase over the 2010-11 school year, when 223 teachers moved away.

While the DOE seeks to fill vacancies with graduates of Hawaii teacher education programs, their numbers are in decline, too. During the 2016-17 year, for the first time in recent years, the count of outgoing — teachers leaving the state — exceeded that of incoming local grads. And while that rookie recruitment has gone up and down in the past eight years, it has mostly slipped — from 545 hires to 387 in 2010-11 and 2016-17, respectively.

In collaboration with the state’s major higher ed institutions, the DOE is responding to recruitment-retention trouble — compounded by a growing wave of retiring baby boomer teachers — with a 5-year plan for improvement.

It expands efforts already in place such as a University of Hawaii’s “Be a hero. Be a teacher” campaign, which targets future teachers as early as the middle school grades — and as late as retirees — and touts flexible class schedules and online courses as a means to producing diverse batches of new teachers. Also slated to grow is the “Grow Our Own” initiative, which helps educational assistants and subs become full-fledged teachers by offering tuition stipends in return for a commitment to teaching.

In addition, the plan envisions initiating a “Troops-to-Teachers” program; recruiting multi-language and hard-to-fill teacher positions through an international exchange program; and setting a pay differential for special education teaching jobs, which have high vacancy rates.

The plan is surely a step in the right direction. However, it will not bring about a significant recruitment-retention rebound unless it also helps teachers — especially new hires — better cope with high cost of living issues. Among those issues, the scarcity of affordable housing is the most expensive. The DOE should start there.

The UH helps its hires pencil out employment viability with faculty housing options. Access to a reasonably priced apartment is a key component of recruitment and retention, particularly among faculty moving to the islands. The DOE, too, should find a way to fold a transitional workforce housing initiative into its efforts.

Regarding the DOE’s plan, schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said last week: “We need some bold action. We have to as a community be willing to try something different.” Agreed. For the sake of some 179,250 students who deserve to start the school year with fully licensed and certified teachers fronting their classrooms, bring on the bold.