The state teachers union says it will lobby legislators next year to fund pre-kindergarten classes at public schools in an effort to preserve teaching jobs and help a set of children who will be too young to enter kindergarten.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association lists the initiative among its legislative priorities for the session that begins Jan. 15.

It marks a shift for the union, which opposed many of the Abercrombie administration’s early-education proposals earlier this year, arguing that a state-funded preschool program would take away resources from the public school system. HSTA took issue with plans to work with private preschools to build capacity.Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, students will need to be at least 5 years old by July 31 to enroll in kindergarten at public schools. The state’s intent was to phase out junior kindergarten — started in 2006 for late-born 4-year-olds — while rolling out a plan for publicly funded universal preschool. Hawaii is one of 11 states without state-funded preschool.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie last year established the Executive Office on Early Learning to lead the effort in hopes of having a program in place for the 2014-15 school year, but lawmakers earlier this year scaled down his initiatives.

An estimated 5,000 children will not be able to enroll in kindergarten next year as a result of the changes. The jobs of about 283 junior kindergarten teachers will be affected, according to a Department of Education estimate.

"We want to reintroduce pre-kindergarten to address the concerns around the sunset of junior kindergarten," said HSTA President Wil Okabe. "Our initiative is to have all children provided with a free pre-kindergarten education with a qualified teacher."

Okabe said providing public preschool will help to ensure consistency for students as they shift to kindergarten at public schools. The idea of consistency is seen as critical for HSTA teachers who are now being evaluated in part by the academic growth of students under a new method that ties raises and other personnel decisions to student performance.

"Not all preschools in the private sector are licensed or have certified teachers. Our teachers went back to school to get certified in early-childhood education," Okabe said. "If there is a void of 4,000 to 5,000 children next year, what happens to those teachers?"

He said the union also wants pre-kindergarten and kindergarten to be mandatory to help secure public funding.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, approved $6 million in additional preschool subsidies for low-income families through Preschool Open Doors, an existing child care program under the Department of Human Services. The money will subsidize the cost of preschool in 2014 for about 900 4-year-olds from low-income families and considered at risk or underserved.

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Education, welcomed the union’s support for publicly funded preschool.

"This is definitely an opportunity for the parties to come together, where previously there had been a pretty significant disconnect," Tokuda said.

Abercrombie’s proposed budget for the upcoming year includes $4.5 million for the Executive Office on Early Learning to establish pre-kindergarten classes on public school campuses. Lawmakers will take up the fiscal 2015 budget when the legislature convenes next month.

GG Weisenfeld, director of the Executive Office on Early Learning, said that $4.5 million would pay for 32 preschool classrooms statewide, with most of the money going toward staffing, equipment and supplies.

She said her office is working with the Department of Education to identify candidate schools, with priority given to rural and underserved areas.

"We want to really build an infrastructure so it can be a quality program. We don’t want to replicate junior kindergarten, which is kindergarten but with an earlier (age) cutoff date," Weisenfeld said.

She added that the department likely doesn’t have the capacity — or funding — to take on an entire additional grade level at public schools.

"There is a concern if we were to develop an entire pre-kindergarten that’s 100 percent under the DOE, the cost would be quite expensive," Weisenfeld said. "That’s part of the rationale for the constitutional amendment, to have an option to fund pre-K not only through DOE schools, but having private partnerships to build capacity and access."

Voters will decide next year whether the Hawaii Constitution should be amended to let the state spend public money on private early-education programs. If the proposal passes, Weisenfeld said, the state envisions sharing the costs with parents, private preschools and the federal government.

Another legislative priority is to set workable instruction-time schedules for schools that HSTA says are struggling to meet a state mandate to lengthen the school day.

A law passed in 2010 in the wake of teacher furloughs requires all schools to have at least 180 instructional days a year and imposes minimum instructional minutes for elementary and secondary schools to meet or exceed national levels.

By the start of the 2014-15 school year, all secondary schools will need to have at least 5 1⁄2 hours of instruction on average each day. Few, if any, middle or high schools meet the requirement now.

"We’re getting constant calls from teachers that they cannot make it within the contracted (seven-hour) workday," Okabe said.

A DEPARTMENT report to lawmakers last year revealed huge time disparities among schools, with some middle and high school students getting up to six fewer hours of classroom time per week.

"More so than other years, this coming year’s report will be more critical now that we’re literally months away from compliance with secondary schools," Tokuda said.

"Two years in a row, we’ve tried to take a good look at redefining instructional time to give schools the best possible chance at compliance but also making sure those are meaningful opportunities for students to learn. Unfortunately, those failed. We’re going to have to determine what the most appropriate next steps are, with everyone understanding that at the end of the day, it’s about what’s best for our students."

The union also plans to lobby for an elected Board of Education that answers to the public rather than the governor.

HSTA says there have been concerns about transparency and accountability with the appointed board, which was changed from an elected board by a 2010 constitutional amendment.

Abercrombie says he is proud of the appointed board’s accomplishments, saying, "The appointed Board of Education has taken politics out of decision-making. Let’s not put it back in."

In a statement to the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser, he credited the board with developing a strategic plan that he says has set up public education for major improvements.

"I am proud of the commitment to transparency and outreach of this non-paid volunteer board," he said, citing more than 750 public, community and stakeholder meetings and school visitations held.

Spokeswoman Dona­lyn Dela Cruz said the department had not yet seen the union’s agenda, but said "teachers and students are critical to our transformation in public education," adding, "We look forward to receiving HSTA’s proposals for the upcoming legislative session."