Finding a way to help teachers struggling with the recovery from the Maui wildfires is an undeniable goal of public education officials. The difficulty lies in doing so without adding to the learning opportunities the students already have suffered.
Hard as that is, it does fall to the state Department of Education (DOE) to craft a plan for the next school year that can accommodate at least some of the teachers’ needs — and to begin that planning process now.
Lahaina-area teachers have pressed for more support in the aftermath of the August wildfires, an effort that culminated in a meeting Thursday before the state Board of Education. A group of about 20 Maui teachers flew to Oahu to make their petition for help from the board.
Specifically, teachers are asking for an increase in pay differential that Lahaina-area teachers receive due to the staffing shortage. They are seeking to boost that annual differential from the current $5,000 to $8,000. State schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi declined that request in March.
The argument is that a larger differential would help in retaining teachers, but it’s easy to see why finding unbudgeted funds for the boost would be difficult. Still, there are other initiatives deserving of a greater sense of urgency than they’re getting.
A good starting point would be for the DOE to implement another of the teachers’ requests: creating a fire-
relief leave bank, in which other members of the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) can contribute some of their own unused sick-leave time for Lahaina teachers.
As of last week, more than 600 teachers statewide have pledged to donate leave days if the bank is created. Getting that bank set up soon makes sense, even if deciding who can claim the leave will take more time to resolve.
In response to the written testimony about the leave benefits, Hayashi said the DOE had begun internal talks on the benefit process in November but that didn’t move forward. He said the matter would be revisited for the next school year, but the teachers deserve a stronger commitment than that, with real progress made during the summer months.
The policy issues need time to work out. For one, it’s clear that every teacher absence leaves a void in the classroom that the DOE already is finding challenging to fill. Long before the Aug. 8 fires killed 101 residents and all but destroyed Lahaina, there have been teacher shortages requiring the deployment of substitutes that themselves have been in short supply.
The DOE has listed 33 vacancies in Lahaina area schools this spring — about 15% of the total teaching staff before the wildfires. According to the HSTA, Lahaina already was hard to staff, a problem that has deepened in the months of fire recovery.
The statistics define the dire conditions. At the beginning of the current school year, the four schools directly affected by the wildfires were served by 214 teachers, 149 of whom lived in the area. About a dozen temporarily transferred to other schools, with a few taking leave for the fall or even the whole year. The number of educators and retirees who lost their homes topped 100.
To ensure that classroom needs are addressed when the new school year begins in fall, the summer months must be the time for the DOE central office to redouble recruitment efforts: Recent retirees should be approached to fill some slots for the near term.
In addition, the department should be conducting an aggressive campaign to enlist substitute teachers; the pleas for additional mental-health counseling staff must be heard as well.
“Superintendent, department, let’s do better,” BOE Vice Chair Kaimana Barcarse said on Thursday.
Agreed. And too much time has been lost already.
