To get more highly qualified teachers and deal with teacher shortages, the state is starting to hire months earlier this year and has partnered with the University of Hawaii to obtain more special education teachers.

Department of Education officials hope filling teaching positions earlier will allow schools to tap into a more robust applicant pool, increase the number of highly qualified teachers hired at hard-to-staff schools and address chronic shortages in some teaching areas, including special education and high school math.

The state’s annual hiring effort usually starts near the end of the school year.

But the pool is "most active in the spring," said Kerry Tom, acting director of the department’s personnel development branch. "We’re trying to catch them (teachers) much earlier instead of waiting until the last minute." By June or July, he added, many new teachers on the mainland have received offers from other districts.

The DOE estimates that between 800 and 1,000 new teachers will be hired for the 2012-13 school year — about the same as in the past two school years but far fewer than the 1,300 to 1,700 new teachers hired annually during better economic times.

Officials said about 200 of new hires for the upcoming school year will be for special education jobs. Another 70 to 100 new secondary school math teachers will be needed. Also, great need continues in hard-to-staff areas, including in the Kau, Pahoa and Keaau areas of Hawaii island and on Lanai and Molokai.

While the state’s projected teacher hiring total is much lower than what was seen before the economic downturn, the fact that the DOE is hiring at all puts Hawaii in a better spot than other states, education experts said. Small and large districts nationwide continue to lay off teachers as they grapple with budget shortfalls and funding cuts.

Hawaii’s schools are "still hiring," said Christine Sorensen, dean of UH-Manoa’s College of Education. "That’s good news."

She added, "They’re not hiring as many as they have and the number of (unlicensed) emergency hires is way down."

Sorensen said UH-Manoa will have about 500 teacher graduates this year.

The DECISION to begin hiring earlier is part of an effort to improve the DOE’s human resources practices. Those improvements will be needed, officials say, for what is expected to be a big increase in hiring when the economic picture improves and as a wave of eligible teachers decide to retire.

"The employment is still not there," Tom said, adding the department has a "lot of people" who are eligible to retire but opting to stay on because of economic uncertainty.

"In five years, there will be a larger problem," Tom said.

As part of this year’s teacher hiring push, teaching preparation programs across the state will hold a hiring fair March 31, where prospective teachers can sit for on-the-spot interviews for openings with public and private school principals. Sorensen said the date of the event was moved up this year to accommodate the DOE’s earlier hiring schedule.

This is the second year the teacher job fair will be held.

Meanwhile, the DOE has also started its mainland teacher recruitment effort.

Sessions this month and next are set for New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Oregon.

Historically, about one-fifth of all new teacher hires for public schools have been nonresidents, according to DOE figures. Also, most new hires — about 70 percent in previous years — are recent college graduates with no previous teaching experience.

The DOE said it is looking to be more selective about hiring this year, requiring teachers to be highly qualified before they start the new school year. "Highly qualified" is a professional designation that means a teacher is fully licensed and has shown subject matter competency. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires all teachers be highly qualified, a goal Hawaii falls short of, especially at high schools.

In Hawaii, 96 percent of elementary school teachers were highly qualified in the 2010-11 school year, while 83 percent of secondary school teachers had the designation. Meanwhile, 78 percent of teachers at schools in high poverty areas were highly qualified.

Tom said recruiting this year — especially on the mainland — will be focused on ensuring new hires have the highly qualified designation.

"If we bring you out to Hawaii, we want you to be licensed and highly qualified," he said.

Meanwhile, the DOE is also finalizing a new partnership with UH-Manoa’s special education teacher preparation program that will allow students seeking an 18-month post-baccalaureate certificate to work as special education teachers in hard-to-staff areas in the coming school year. The teachers would be considered "emergency hires" since they would be working to receive teaching licenses.

About 80 students are expected to participate.

Amelia Jenkins, UH-Manoa Department of Special Education chairwoman, said the partnership is designed to help address a chronic shortage of special education teachers at schools in remote areas. The program, which is still accepting applicants, will offer tuition subsidies.

"We’re always trying to be responsive to the need," Jenkins said.