David Shapiro: Department of Education keeps squandering our hard-won pandemic lessons

The local education establishment has fought efforts to break up Hawaii’s statewide school system, the only one in the nation, claiming centralization brings efficiency and equal educational opportunity for all.

The Department of Education has failed to prove it in the COVID-19 pandemic, with key decisions being chaotically made school by school — or even classroom by classroom.

It has caused confusion among parents, uncertainty for students and grievances from teachers.

Plans for this school year were largely drawn by outgoing state schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, who was determined to open schools after last year’s shutdown left many students hopelessly behind, and inherited by her interim successor, Keith Hayashi, with little transition leadership from the Board of Education.

The result has been ever-changing rules with vague explanations.

While 6 feet was considered the safe separation for social distancing in the community, DOE reduced it to 3 feet in classrooms, arguing it was safe because students faced forward.

Now Hayashi says even 3 feet is “not practical” and is going unobserved in many schools.

With the delta variant surging in the community, there have been some 2,500 public school-related cases, but DOE administrators insist no clusters have fed infection in the broader community.

Department of Health cluster reports appear to support this, but the data isn’t specific enough to satisfy critics.

Shifting rules and sketchy numbers led the Hawaii State Teachers Association to file a grievance claiming unsafe working conditions.

The teachers have cried wolf so often that it’s strained their credibility, but this complaint raises some valid concerns.

“The department is taking a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach to so many things about the pandemic,” said HSTA President Osa Tui Jr. “They are not collecting data on lack of distancing or how many staff and students are isolating because of COVID-19. That way, they can continue to claim that there isn’t a problem.”

The DOE only recently completed a workable system to accommodate more than 600 students whose parents opted for full distance learning this semester.

But students forced into temporary quarantine for as long as 10 days because of exposure to COVID-19 haven’t been counted, and there’s no systemwide plan for instructing them while they’re out.

Some of the 257 public schools give them comprehensive study guidance, while others offer virtually nothing. DOE doesn’t break down the data, and schools often respond with “no comment” when questioned.

There’s no apparent fallback plan to meet increasing demand for distance-learning seats or a return to full distance learning if the COVID-19 spread worsens.

Lessons learned from the prolonged shutdown last school year appear few as DOE continues to wing it school by school, while frustrated parents struggle to understand the rules.

Individual schools need some measure of flexibility, but in a deadly pandemic we must have uniform safety standards across the system, easily understood, and extensive data collection so we can trust the standards are being met.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.