Teachers approve 4-year contract

Hawaii public school teachers overwhelmingly voted in favor Thursday of a contract that will boost their pay by 13.6 percent over the next four years.

Ninety-eight percent of teachers who cast a ballot voted to ratify the deal, the 13,500-member Hawaii State Teachers Association announced. A simple majority of votes was needed, and nearly 8,000 ballots had been counted as of Thursday night.

“This is a good moment for all teachers,” Corey Rosenlee, the union’s president, said after the votes were tallied. “Our goal from the start was to establish a fair and equitable contract that offers professional pay and improves working conditions to attract and retain the best and the brightest into the classrooms to enhance student learning and give our keiki the schools they deserve.”

The contract calls for annual pay raises through a combination of pay grade step increases and across-the-board 3.5 percent raises in alternating years. A spokeswoman for Gov. David Ige said the wage increases will cost an estimated $115.4 million.

Osa Tui, who’s been a teacher for 19 years and serves as chairman of the union’s negotiations committee, called the raises a step in the right direction.

“In order to make a living here in Hawaii, we need to see some increases. Cost of living only goes up and up, so we need our salaries to at least be on par with that,” Tui said. “We need to have competitive salaries that can attract and retain teachers.”

Under the contract, a beginning licensed teacher will earn $47,443 at the start of next school year and end up making $53,177 at the end of the contract. That will mark the first time entry-level teachers will earn more than $50,000.

Meanwhile, pay for HSTA’s most senior teachers — who will receive $1,500 bonuses in lieu of step movements — will increase to $91,950 over the life of the contract.

Teachers began casting ballots after the school day ended Thursday at 30 polling sites across the state. At McKinley High School, where teachers from 32 Honolulu- area schools were assigned to vote, several teachers said they were looking forward to bigger paychecks.

Social studies teacher Shaun Kamida, who’s in his fourth year of teaching at McKinley, said he has to supplement his teacher salary with a second job at a supermarket, where he works most nights until 11:30 p.m.

“It’s not always about the pay, but pay is important,” said Kamida, who voted in favor of the contract. “I’m very grateful that it is a lot better than what was originally offered to us. We’re getting actual pay raises into our base salaries.”

In earlier rounds of contract talks, state negotiators had proposed annual 1 percent lump-sum bonuses for teachers.

Hannibal Starbuck, a science teacher at Baldwin High on Maui for the past 11 years, called the contract fair.

“I think it’s a fair deal. It’s significant,” he said of the pay increases. He said his family took a hit under past contracts that included furlough Fridays, pay cuts and higher health premiums.

Starbuck described himself as being in the “compressed middle” of the teacher salary chart, where pay grade steps aren’t as large as those for beginning and more seasoned teachers.

“That’s where most of the teachers are. It would be nice of them to work on that, to un-compress the middle, so to say, and move people up,” he added.

The contract also maintains 21 hours of “job-embedded” professional development training in the first two years, equivalent to three days of pay. Teachers receive credits for the training, which can then be used to move into a higher pay category, a move known as reclassifying.

“I’m excited about the pay increase, the step movements, the 21 hours of (professional development) we’re retaining,” said Jamie Gomer, a college career counselor at King Kekaulike High, where she’s worked for 10 years. “For me it feels good. My husband and I are educators, so any contract impacts both of us. … We have to treat education like the important job that it is.”

Other teachers said they appreciate that the contract calls for improvements to the Department of Education’s teacher evaluation system, which, despite adjustments, many teachers still say is too onerous and takes time away from the classroom. Tying teacher evaluations to student achievement, or test scores, had been a requirement under the federal Race to the Top grant and No Child Left Behind law.

HSTA’s contract relaxes the teacher evaluation requirements for tenured teachers rated effective or highly effective.

“Highly effective teachers shouldn’t have to prove themselves over and over and over,” said Debbie Hisashima, a 27-year veteran in the DOE who is now an academic coach for teachers at Pukalani Elementary. “We divert a lot of time and energy to fulfill the requirements … rather than just teach.”

Rosenlee said the union will continue to advocate for better working conditions for teachers and improved facilities for students. The union had presented proposals to cap class sizes and increase supports for special-education teachers.

“We do not believe the contract is perfect, but we believe this is a good step moving forward,” he said. “This is a good thing, the contract, but no one’s going to say this is going to solve our problems overnight.”