The Hawaii State Teachers Association said 92 percent of teachers voted to approve the contract, which covers 13,000 public school teachers until June 30, 2007.

The exact number of teachers voting was not released and officials said there were a number of absentee ballots yet to be counted.

"We expected a really good vote because this contract was unanimously recommended to the membership," said union spokeswoman Danielle Lum. "So we expected something good."

In Nu'uanu, teachers began lining up at Kawananakoa Middle School before the 3 p.m. start of the voting. After they finished, many stopped at the school cafeteria's entrance to thank HSTA President Roger Takabayashi for what they thought was a good contract.

"Everyone seems happy," said Clayton Tom, who teaches marketing education at Farrington High School. "The questions have been more about clarification of the contract rather than confrontation."

Robert Hong, who teaches auto shop at McKinley High School, said teachers were "saying this is the best we've gotten so far."

Under the new contract, the top salary for a public school teacher in Hawai'i rises from $66,000 to $73,000. It raises starting pay for trained teachers with bachelor's degrees from $36,851 to $39,901, and boosts the average teacher salary from about $47,000 to $53,000 a year.

June Motokawa, a student services coordinator at Kawananakoa, said she was most pleased with the salary boost.

"I'm very pleased," she said. "It really begins to address recruitment of teachers and we thoroughly need it."