Teacher chaperone rules face ethics code overhaul

The Board of Education decided Tuesday to hammer out a policy to ensure that public school teachers can chaperone students on educational field trips without having to pay their own way.

The unanimous decision followed a sometimes testy exchange with Ethics Commission Executive Director Les Kondo, who assured board members that he thinks the situation is “fixable” and that part of the controversy stems from “misinformation.”

“The commission is not saying that teachers cannot receive free travel,” Kondo told board members at their general meeting Tuesday. “What the commission is saying is that under the current model, the way that the trips are currently organized, the commission believes it is inappropriate for those teachers to accept the free travel.”

It has been a long-standing practice for teachers to travel free while chaperoning students on field trips to the mainland and beyond.

The tussle over whether that is ethical dates back to the spring when, in response to an inquiry, Ethics Commission staff advised King Intermediate School that a planned educational trip to Washington, D.C., and New York violated ethics laws. In that case teachers selected and worked with a tour company to organize the trip, promoted it to students and then accepted a free ride and other benefits from the company.

Board members Brian De Lima, Hubert Minn and Amy Asselbaye volunteered Tuesday to serve on an investigative committee to come up with a solution to present to the rest of the board as soon as possible, no later than 60 days.

Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said the Department of Education has been consulting with Ethics Commission staff on a possible policy and is hopeful that one might be crafted within a couple of weeks for review by the committee.

Board Chairman Lance Mizumoto said the board wants to resolve what he sees as a standoff between the department and commission staff.

“What I sense is that we are at a stalemate as to how to address this issue,” Mizumoto said. “The fact remains that the discussions have been quite contentious, and I don’t think it’s getting any better.”

“We all have to keep in mind this is for the kids,” he concluded. “We have to keep our focus on that.”

An Aug. 4 memorandum from the Ethics Commission warned teachers that they could face sanctions under the ethics law if they accepted free travel after July 31 on trips structured like King Intermediate’s. Commissioners followed up with an advisory opinion last week further explaining their rationale.

They said that such trips violate ethics provisions against conflicts of interest and accepting gifts because the teachers are receiving something of value from a private entity apparently in exchange for their official actions, and they appear to be acting on behalf of the tour company.

Board member Jim Williams expressed frustration that Kondo wouldn’t recommend a policy that could work, but freely identified what he believed didn’t measure up.

“If the department comes up with trial balloons, you’re willing to shoot them down,” Williams said, adding that he wants the committee to consider all options, including possible changes to the law or legal action.

Last week the Hawaii State Teachers Association filed “a petition for a declaratory order” with the commission, asking it to repeal its Aug. 4 memorandum.

Kondo said the commission has received information on 22 pending trips for this school year, including some to Europe.

He told board members that developing the policy was the department’s job, not the commission’s.

“We’ve been saying from Day One that we’re here to help,” Kondo said. “That’s not my job, to decide how to structure things. … Whatever policy you decide to implement, we can comment and offer our two cents.”

He added, “It’s fixable, at least in my opinion.”

De Lima, the board’s vice chairman, ran one possible scenario by the ethics chief.

“If a request for these trips went to the DOE procurement office, and if the students from the various schools were solicited as to their interest, and the department at the state level made the award of the trip, and free trips were issued by the department to teachers who wanted to volunteer, then the teacher could accept the trip?” De Lima said.

“Yeah, probably, maybe,” Kondo responded. “Soliciting from different companies, and with the selection way above the teacher level, that probably addresses the state Ethics Code.”

De Lima and other board members stressed that they wanted quick action and cooperation.

“I want to make sure we have a ‘Can do, let’s get it done’ attitude,” De Lima said. “The bottom line is that we all want the travel to occur and we want to find a solution sooner rather than later.”