Campbell High School social studies teacher Corey Rosenlee, who’s led a grass-roots movement to improve teaching conditions at Hawaii public schools, has been elected to lead the powerful Hawaii State Teachers Association, the union announced Tuesday.
In a controversial repeat election, Rosenlee secured the needed votes last week to be president of the 13,500-member union — a position he contends he rightfully won before the union’s board of directors voted to reject the initial results.
Rosenlee will take office for a three-year term that starts July 9 along with his running mates: King Kamehameha III Elementary special-education teacher Justin Hughey as vice president and Mililani High social studies teacher Amy Perusso as secretary-treasurer.
The trio had campaigned on a platform that promised to fight for "fair" pay for teachers, elimination of high-stakes performance evaluations, social justice and respect for teachers.
The election proved controversial as it pitted outspoken teacher advocates against current union leaders. Rosenlee ran against the union’s outgoing vice president, Joan Lewis, while Hughey challenged HSTA’s outgoing secretary-treasurer, Colleen Pasco.
After teachers voted for state officers electronically and by mail for two weeks in April, the HSTA board took the unusual step of postponing certification of the election results for all races because none of the vice presidential candidates received a majority of votes, forcing a runoff election for the top vote-getters.
The runoff election was held by mail for two weeks in early May.
The union’s board then voted May 16 to reject both the runoff and overall results and called for a new election, citing voting irregularities, including reports that some teachers did not receive their ballots.
Rosenlee sued the union last month in an effort to get the HSTA to accept the results of the original elections. He also tried to block the new election, but a judge denied the request for a temporary restraining order, clearing the way for a June 2 election in which teachers voted at physical polling sites.
His lawsuit, which is still pending, claims the board’s decision to reject the results "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.
"I think both elections consistently reflected what our teachers want," Rosenlee said in an interview. "I’m happy at this point to move on."
Rosenlee, who will take leave from his teaching job, said he’s looking forward to working to unify and strengthen the union to be an advocate for improving public education.
"The HSTA can be one of the most powerful forces for change in education," he said. "There are large issues facing education in Hawaii, and I’m hoping as a union we can start focusing on these larger problems."
Hughey added, "Across the board there are so many areas that need addressing. We’re going to have to come together and work together to do what we were elected to do."
Rosenlee cited as a key issue the underfunding of 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?"
Rosenlee was behind the grass-roots Hawaii Teachers Work to the Rules movement, a protest launched in 2011 against a contract the state unilaterally imposed that summer that saddled teachers with pay cuts. The group has since evolved into a broad lobbying effort for improved teaching conditions, including calls for better pay for teachers and rallies for air-conditioned classrooms.
Rosenlee said social inequality motivated him to run for office.
"I believe that education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Currently what we’re doing is segregating our schools, not primarily by race anymore, but by socioeconomic status," he said. "It angers me that we say in the U.S. and in Hawaii that if you’re rich, you get the best education, and if you’re from the middle class or poor, we won’t invest in you. That’s morally wrong, and that’s something that needs to change."
