Teachers OK longer school days

Teachers can now apply to transfer to or from 19 schools that will offer longer instructional days and more teacher training next school year.

The state’s annual teacher transfer period started Tuesday, a day after teachers at 18 schools in Wai­anae and the Kau-Pahoa area of Hawaii island, and at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and the Blind approved an agreement to work an hour more on most instructional days.

The agreement also includes 12 extra training days.

Wil Okabe, Hawaii State Teachers Association president, said he anticipates there will be teachers who will want to transfer from the schools with longer hours for a variety of reasons. He has also heard from teachers interested in filling potential vacancies at the schools.

The transfer period runs through March 13 and from April 12 to 18.

The big draw will be a pay increase for teachers at the schools.

Teachers will be compensated for the additional instructional time based on their current rate, rather than getting a bonus or stipend, as has been the practice for voluntary extended learning time programs. Teachers who work for 10 months will get a 17.4 percent pay differential, and those who teach for 12 months will receive a 36.9 percent differential.

A 5 percent wage reduction for all teachers will cut into the differentials, which are based on a 2009-11 salary schedule, Okabe said.

Eighty percent of teachers in affected schools voted in favor of the agreement, a major step under Hawaii’s Race to the Top grant. The extra time will cost $11 million in the 2012-13 school year and be paid for with several federal funding sources, the state Department of Education said.

The agreement is sorely needed for the state’s education reform agenda, which has suffered a host of setbacks amid a continuing labor dispute, staffing and hiring problems, and procurement delays.

Federal reviewers will visit Hawaii in late March to determine the state’s progress on Race to the Top initiatives. Delays in meeting many reform goals spurred the U.S. Department of Education in December to warn the state the grant money could be lost if more gains were not made.

While extending the school day is not a centerpiece of Hawaii’s reform efforts, it is a key part of the bigger push to boost student achievement at poorly performing schools. The state had originally hoped to have longer instructional days at "zone of school innovation" schools in place this year, but failed to get a union agreement in time.

Stephen Schatz, department assistant superintendent for strategic reform, called the extended instructional time effort a "big deal."

"We’re providing additional learning time that we’re going to use intelligently for our students," he said. "This is one of those reforms that is not … about systemic or organization reform as much as this is where the rubber meets the road."

The union agreement on longer school days comes a month after teachers rejected a proposed contract that would have moved them to performance-based evaluations tied to tenure and annual raises, a pillar of the state’s reform efforts to improve teacher effectiveness.

The lack of a master agreement means teachers continue to work under a "last, best and final" contract offer with wage reductions imposed in July. The union is pursuing a prohibited-practice case before the Hawaii Labor Relations Board because of the state’s action.

Meanwhile, Okabe has informed the Board of Education that he intends to file a second prohibited-practice complaint to object to the approval last week of proposals to make it board policy that the state move to a performance-based management system for teachers.

The policy additions, which must go through a "consult and confer" process with unions before they become final, require the department to adopt new evaluations for teachers that take into account student academic growth, then use those evaluations when considering pay and tenure.

Under the policy, the department must roll out the revised evaluations statewide in the 2013-14 school year and must use the evaluations and "associated feedback" in personnel decisions by July 1, 2014.

Legislators are also looking at writing into state law a requirement that the state move to a performance-management system for teachers.

Okabe said he has asked the school board to rescind its policy changes.

"We really do not want to go back into court to handle this situation, but we believe that’s why there are laws in place," he said.