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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, March 15, 2001


Impact of strike to be widespread

 •  Hawai'i teachers OK strike overwhelmingly
 •  Campus mood is sympathetic
 •  Teachers' contract dispute at a glance

By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Education Writer

As the clock ticks down to a possible teacher strike, education officials are bracing for what they say could be a serious situation with widespread ramifications.

With contract negotiations deadlocked, Hawai'i's teachers last night authorized their union to call a strike. Unless a settlement is reached in the meantime, teachers are expected to walk off the job April 5.

"Obviously, the disruption will be incredible on parents and students and in teachers' lives as well, and I think the whole state will feel the impact, which is why we hope we can still resolve this," said Karen Knudsen, the Board of Education's second vice chairwoman.

Attorneys representing special education students already have said they will ask a federal judge to intervene if teachers walk. They say any strike would affect the care of special needs children and derail the state's efforts to comply with the Felix consent decree, which has imposed a December deadline for improved special education services.

Although it is unclear if U.S. District Judge David Ezra would intervene in a teacher strike, he does have the power to take over the school system to ensure the needs of special-education students are met.

Meanwhile, the board and Department of Education have been deluged with questions from parents and students about what a strike will mean for them. A drawn-out strike threatens to disrupt all end-of-year activities including graduation ceremonies, proms, extra-curricular activities and sports competitions.

At the same time, the department is concerned about the possible disruption of efforts to overhaul the system and improve school performance.

But with a possible strike 21 days away, only one thing is clear: No one is sure what will happen. "We're dealing with a lot of unknowns at this point," Knudsen said.

The department, union and parent organizations are readying information that will help parents deal with a strike. The Parents Teachers Students Association recommends parents begin networking with friends or neighbors to coordinate child care.

State Schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu said that, for now, the department is concentrating on the first five days of a strike and efforts to keep schools open. That depends on the success of a request to have 322 special-education teachers declared essential workers and on how many teachers cross the picket line. If inadequate supervision creates a safety problem, schools will be closed.

And while teachers around the state are figuring how long they can survive without a pay check, other critical deadlines are emerging at which point a strike would become unbearable or even damaging.

In another complication surrounding special education, the Individual Education Plans of the state's more than 20,000 special needs students would have to be redone if a strike lasted longer than 10 days, according to an attorney in the Felix case.

"(Under federal law) any time a child's program is not implemented for more than 10 days, it's considered a change in placement and in order to have a change in placement you have to have changes in the IEP," said Susan Cooper, an attorney with the Maximum Legal Services Corporation Disabled Rights Legal Project. "The thought is mind-boggling."

The meetings that establish an IEP, which lay out the services each child is entitled to, are notoriously drawn-out sessions requiring the coordination of up to a dozen stakeholders.

LeMahieu also has another critical deadline in mind for graduating seniors.

"The break point is about 20 days," he said. "At 20 days, the state board has to be involved to determine whether or not they are going to require make-up time (from students) or if they're going to waive (the missed days)."

A strike also could derail the state's efforts to overhaul the system with new standards that are designed to boost student performance.

"We've got an agenda, and we've been making some pretty remarkable progress," LeMahieu said. "That all gets placed at risk both immediately by the distraction of a strike and over the longer term by people's willingness to re-engage to work together."

The new Hawai'i-based test that was to be taken by students in April already is in doubt. The department has frozen the distribution of testing materials to schools until the matter is resolved.

If a strike does occur and it lasts more than two weeks, Selvin Chin-Chance, who heads up the department's testing section, said the department will consider other options, which could include not giving the test at all.

Much is riding on the launch of the new test, which replaces the Stanford Achievement Test.