Soon after graduating from Harvard last May, Vinny Byju fulfilled his dream of moving to Hawaii to teach social studies to high school students. The islands not only impress with their natural beauty, but also with their complex history and the diversity of people.
However, by the end of that school year, Byju, 23, may no longer have the job he does teaching AP Psychology, Modern Hawaiian History, and Participation in Democracy for Aiea High Juniors and Seniors. He is also part of Teach for America, which is helping students work towards the teacher license.
“Of course there is a lot of uncertainty, but I try to make the best of it,” he said. “I’m very happy to be employed for the rest of the school year, but I have some plans for rent and lease. At the moment I’m stuck and hope that I can stay in Hawaii. “
While the state suffers from a budget shortage caused by a pandemic, the Hawaii Department of Education, funded primarily by general funding, is particularly feeling the impact, and this may affect its ability to recruit teachers for the islands.
Hawaii has long suffered from a chronic lack of qualified teachers that disproportionately affects low-income schools and remote areas. Historically dependent on teachers on the mainland, the high cost of living in the state can often discourage long-term residence, while many vacancies are often filled by proxy or non-teaching staff.
Now recruitment efforts are being shaken by the insecure household climate that is making existing teachers nervous about their jobs. Not to mention the ongoing pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the DOE’s annual teacher recruitment visits to the mainland.
The state is trying to adapt with virtual job fairs and a plan to reinstate retired teachers, but it’s a tough sell when even pre-existing successful initiatives like pay differentials for hard-to-fill teachers face a shaky future.
“The fact is, we still need teachers, we still need support staff,” Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said in an interview with the Civil Beat editorial team last week. “We will continue to focus on making sure we continue to recruit and send the message that we are running schools. For that we need a talented team. “
Public schools were ordered late last year to cut their budgets by 10% due to a revenue shortfall caused by the COVID-19 crisis – a move that could have resulted in the loss of more than 1,300 school-level jobs, including 800 teachers.
The situation has improved thanks to more optimistic revenue forecasts and hopes for additional federal aid. The school principal told the education committee just last week that the school budget cuts had dropped to 1%.
“We pushed that straight back to the headmasters so we can stabilize school-based decisions,” Kishimoto told Civil Beat. “Our priority is to maintain capacity, especially in the classroom and in support services at the school level.”
The hiring plan
The restoration of funds caused a sigh of relief. Bob Davis, the superintendent of the complex area for the Leilehua-Mililani-Waialua region, said many of his schools have been able to restore lost jobs and stave off layoffs “due to natural brain drain through retirement, resignation and vacancy.” ”
But the Hawaii State Teachers Association has warned that a recurring $ 100.2 million DOE budget cut in the 2021-23 budget period could still spell the loss of nearly 700 teaching jobs if no further state relief in Kicking power.
Byju, for example, was told by his director last month that it didn’t look like his position would be available next year and that he should start looking for other options in the DOE.
“That is my understanding,” he said in a telephone interview on Friday. “I’ve heard some rumors that more money may come in, but my director told me not to plan on coming back.”
While the staffing landscape remains on the move for the next year, the DOE still needs to ensure that it has enough qualified candidates to fill the remaining positions in a state with a persistent teacher shortage.
According to the DOE’s Office of Talent Management, there were 364 vacancies at the end of the first semester of the 2020/21 school year, that is 2.7% of all teaching positions.
A review of the school budget, an opportunity to reinstate posts and an extension of the teacher change deadline are clouding the prospects for the next year, according to the office.
“It is currently difficult to predict vacancies for the next school year,” DOE spokeswoman Krislyn Yano said in an email. “We hope to have a better picture by late spring.”
The addition of salary increases this year of $ 3,000-10,000 annually for certain hard-to-fill teaching positions, including special education, geographically difficult-to-fill positions, and Hawaiian language studies, has significantly reduced churn and drawn many people into these teaching professions.
However, the wage differentials, which cost about $ 30 million a year, have stalled time and again.
In the most recent effort, Kishimoto shared a letter with school principals earlier this month that the wage increases would end next year due to the difficult economic climate, resulting in a deluge of written credentials from teachers who said the extra money made them possible making a living amid the the pandemic.
The state education ministry rejected the move on Thursday, instructing the school principal to prioritize the continuation of these pay differentials for the next school year and to use federal grants if necessary.
So far, 4,353 of the country’s 13,500 teachers are receiving the salary increases, which went into effect in January 2020.
In her mid-year self-assessment presented to the board last month, Kishimoto set out her vision for teacher recruitment and retention, pointing out teacher differences as one of the most effective strategies.
“The fact is, we still need teachers, we still need assistants.” – Superintendent Christina Kishimoto
She also listed the state’s plan to reinstate retired teachers and its ongoing international recruitment efforts. This year the program brought four teachers from the Philippines on J-1 visas to schools in Hawaii that support international cultural and educational exchanges.
Three of the international teachers now teach on Lanai, while another has been housed in the Nanakuli Complex area in Leeward Oahu.
In addition, last month the sixth annual government recruitment fair, entitled “It’s Great to be a Teacher,” took place virtually for the first time to educate potential candidates on how to obtain a teaching license and provide more information about the Hawaii profession.
This year, the event, usually held at Leeward Community College in Oahu, attracted large numbers of virtual attendees, many of whom were able to attend for the first time as they did not have to pay for flights to attend in person.
In light of the uncertainty, a key goal this year was to attract prospective high school and community college graduates to enter the careers in order to spark an early interest in the field, the organizers said.
Iolani Zablan, a longtime substitute teacher at and from Lanai Elementary for the past four years, said she was able to attend the event for the first time since the virtual event.
She said she learned a lot of useful information about how to get certification so that she can achieve her goal of installing a permanent Hawaiian language immersion program on the remote island that doesn’t currently exist.
“Many people who want their children to go to an immersion school leave the island because there is nothing for them here,” she said in a Zoom interview.
Zablan, 27, said it was difficult to embark on a teaching career given the budgetary environment, but she is committed to this path.
“Someone could really come and take my job anytime,” she said. “It scares me because I’ve been with these children for so long, I don’t want to just leave them.”
Elton Kinoshita, the principal of Lanai High and Elementary School, said his school has been unable to fill two to five vacant teaching positions consistently in recent years. Many of the teachers he recruits are typically from similarly small towns on the mainland.
He’s also trying to encourage more local residents to explore nature trails, but praised the J-1 international visa teacher program as a first to meet needs.
“We want to continue encouraging local Lanai children to become teachers with Lanai roots. But I think this is a great alternative for the next few years. If our economy stands still for four years and we can’t raise teachers’ salaries, I think that’s a very workable solution, ”he said.
