In a controversial repeat election, Hawaii schoolteachers have elected Campbell High School teacher Corey Rosenlee to lead the 13,500-member Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Rosenlee, an outspoken advocate for improving teaching conditions, secured the needed votes in a June 2 election to be president of the HSTA — a position he contends he previously won in an election the union’s board of directors voted to reject.

He ran against the union’s outgoing vice president, Joan Lewis.

In a memo to members Tuesday afternoon, outgoing HSTA President Wil Okabe announced Rosenlee’s victory along with Rosenlee’s running mates, King Kamehameha III Elementary special education teacher Justin Hughey as vice president and Mililani High social studies teacher Amy Perruso as secretary-treasurer.

“The HSTA can be one of the most powerful forces for change in education,” Rosenlee told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “There are large issues facing education in Hawaii and I’m hoping as a union we can start focusing on these larger problems.”

He cited as a key issue the underfunding of Hawaii’s public schools.

“When we’re putting public school students in 100-degree classrooms in buildings that are on average 65 years old and paying our teachers the lowest in the nation,” he said, “we have to ask, ‘What kind of education system are we providing to our students?’”

The new leadership team will begin three-year terms on July 9.

Rosenlee had filed a lawsuit last month in an effort to get the HSTA to accept the results of the original election. He also tried to block the new election, but a judge denied his motion for a temporary restraining order.

His lawsuit, which is still pending, claims the board’s decision to reject the results and call for a new election “occurred only after a majority of the board learned that (Rosenlee) had been elected and their preferred slate of candidates had been defeated” — a claim union officials have denied.

The HSTA’s board of directors voted May 16 to reject the results of ballots cast electronically and by mail for two weeks in April for a new union president and other officers, and again in May for a runoff election for vice president. Union officials had cited voting irregularities and discrepancies for the decision, including reports that some teachers did not receive their ballots.

Teachers voted at physical polling sites for the latest election.

“I think both elections consistently reflected what our teachers want,” Rosenlee said. “I’m happy at this point to move on.”