Teacher vacancies a growing problem
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
Teacher hiring has become a Sisyphean effort in Hawai'i, with the 1,600 vacancies each year far outpacing the ability of local universities to produce education graduates.
Vacancies that occur when teachers retire, become ill, take family leave or move to another job have risen since the mid-1990s. To fill the gap, the Department of Education has had to rely increasingly on out-of-state recruiting, bringing in teachers who many times have short-lived careers here.
The Department of Education last week released is 2001-02 Teacher Employment Report, a snapshot of teacher hiring in Hawai'i.
"We've got quite a challenging job," said Amy Yamashita, a personnel specialist with the DOE. "There are always vacancies occurring."
In the 1996-97 school year, the DOE hired 906 teachers.
In 2001-02, it hired 1,552. That's a 71 percent increase in vacancies in just five years.
Bruce Shimomoto, a personnel specialist at the DOE, said the department expects the trend will continue, and that the DOE will have to search harder to fill its empty classrooms, much like the king of Greek mythology doomed forever to roll a huge stone to a hilltop in Hades only to have it roll back.
"It will be a national phenomenon," Shimomoto said. "A lot of states have their baby-boom generation retiring now."
According to the report, of those teachers hired in the 2001-02 school year, 68 percent have no previous teaching experience.
About a third of all new teachers are fully licensed.
About 58 percent are credentialed, meaning they have not completed all of the reading, writing and math exams required by the state to become licensed and may or may not have completed a teacher education program. Teachers must complete the exams by their fourth year of employment.
The number of Hawai'i teachers with out-of-state college degrees has edged higher each year.
In the 1995-96 school year, 47.9 percent of newly hired teachers came with out-of-state degrees, while in the 2000-01 school year, 51.5 percent went to schools outside Hawai'i.
Now, 57.2 percent of public-school teachers have earned their diplomas elsewhere.
The percentage of Hawai'i public-school teachers graduating from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, the largest source of teachers in the state, has gradually declined, from 38.8 percent of DOE hires in 1997 to 27.5 percent in 2001.
Randy Hitz, dean of the College of Education at UH-Manoa, said his department is down 9.5 faculty positions because of budget constraints, which means that fewer students are able to get the classes they need to graduate.
"The budget cuts are hurting us, too," Hitz said.
Michael Fassiotto, director of Chaminade University's department of education, said that while his department is growing, the largest growth area is in adults returning to school to pursue alternate certification programs.
"A lot of younger kids don't see teaching as an option," he said. "That's partially because of the lousy publicity that teachers get. All the arguments people give against teaching are true. We don't do enough to convince our younger students to come in."
Fassiotto also said the DOE should work more with all of the local universities to devise a plan for meeting the state's needs.
"We could make a more healthy dent if we knew where we were going," Fassiotto said. "There are mechanisms to do that, but I don't think the DOE is using all of them."
Despite the increasing demand for more teachers, the district's total recruiting budget has remained at $100,000 per year.
To try to improve the retention rate of teachers from the Mainland, Hawai'i has airport meet-and-greet programs, offers help finding housing and provides mentoring. But officials say those efforts need more money behind them.
A pilot program in the Windward district that pairs new teachers with experienced mentor teachers has proved popular in helping new hires learn the ins and outs of the DOE and their own schools. But Yamashita said that money to continue the program is in danger.
The report also said the state continues to need teachers for Hawaiian immersion, industrial arts, math, science, English and counseling, along with librarians.
Most new teachers are between the ages of 26 and 30.
The Leeward district continues to hire the most new teachers each year, while Kaua'i hires the least. The 'Ewa, Kapolei and Mililani areas in the DOE's Leeward district are among the fastest-growing areas of the state.
The Leeward district hired 353 teachers in the 2001-02 school year, or 22.7 percent of the statewide total, while Kaua'i hired 79 teachers, or 5.1 percent.
Female teachers outnumber male teachers in both elementary and secondary education.
