Three weeks before all Hawai'i public schools are open for the fall, the Department of Education still needs 400 more teachers to fill classrooms statewide.

Gerald Okamoto, assistant superintendent for the Office of Human Resources, called that a "manageable number" and said he expects it to improve substantially before Aug. 23, when all schools will be open.

Good news in special education, one of the DOE's hard-to-recruit specialties, offered a bright spot in the state's perennial teacher shortage. This year the DOE has been able to recruit most of the special education teachers it needs, with only about 18 vacancies left.

"Special education is down to less than a 1 percent vacancy," Okamoto said. "I'm driving to make it zero."

Hawai'i's public schools have struggled for years to find enough teachers amid a national teacher shortage. Last year the DOE had more than 350 teacher vacancies at the start of school. The state needs 1,400 to 1,600 new teachers every year to replace those who retire or leave the system.

Any vacancies that remain after the start of school will be filled by emergency hires rather than substitute teachers, Okamoto said.

Teaching credentials for emergency hires are lower than those for regular hires, Okamoto said. All emergency hires must have at least a bachelor's degree, but it could be in a field unrelated to what they will teach.

FILL-INS VS. SUBSTITUTES

Substitute teachers generally are not used on a long-term basis, as these emergency hires would be, Okamoto said. Instead, substitutes are used primarily for day-to-day absences, illnesses and when schools need fill-ins for teachers on maternity leave.

"We like to have stability in the classroom," Okamoto said.

Joan Husted, executive director of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, said teachers without teaching degrees or licenses are paid about $8,400 a year less than trained and licensed teachers.

"We would love to have nothing but licensed teachers from day one," Husted said. "But we have yet to make ourselves competitive enough to attract nothing but licensed teachers.

"We believe every kid deserves to have a highly qualified teacher. But we recognize you may have to pick up people on a short-term basis who have not yet completed their qualifications."

Okamoto said the focus now is on finding appropriate openings for the candidates it has not yet placed.

"The last push is to get the principals to commit or not to certain names," Okamoto said. "Then we circulate those names to other schools. We might take a name and send it out to three or four different schools.

"We will talk to the applicants and find out what other locations they're interested in. We do a lot of managing at this point. We are continuously recruiting and trying to find applicants."

The largest number of vacancies is in general education, although areas such as the Wai'anae coast and Neighbor Islands generally have done well in recruiting enough teachers.

"We really made a focused effort to recruit for the hard-to-recruit schools, like the geographically isolated," Okamoto said.

RECRUITING

One of the recruiting tools that Okamoto thinks helped this year was including on recruiting trips principals from areas and schools traditionally harder to recruit for.

"I have to take my hat off to the principals," Okamoto said. "They gave the applicants a very realistic portrayal of where they were recruiting for."

Okamoto said that worked to Hawai'i's advantage as recruits could meet people they'd be working with and were able to ask questions about the area, housing and other details of life in Hawai'i.

But other recruiting tools also are effective. Ken Kang, an engineer by background who worked on the Hawai'i-made film "Final Fantasy" before becoming a full-time teacher this year, said it made a difference being recruited by his old high school, 'Aiea.

"I chose 'Aiea because it's my alma mater," said Kang, who got involved teaching part-time a couple of years ago as a kind of resource person for a new computer repair program the school was offering.

"My background is in engineering and they were trying to boost that area," he said. "And I really did like the interaction with the students. My engineering job was in an office with my own cubicle, but in a school you get to see the different personalities of the students and adjust yourself to see what works."

DETERRENTS

Jhameel Duarte, who accepted a position as a home economics teacher at Wahiawa Middle School as her first full-time teaching job, said the upper grades sometimes struggle to find teachers because of concerns new teachers may have about discipline, student attitudes and even more challenging curricula under No Child Left Behind.

"I think that adds added pressure to make sure students are learning the kinds of things students are supposed to be learning," said Duarte, 23. "You're trying to get them ready for graduation or college. You don't want students who cannot read or have a hard time comprehending. It makes your job a little bit harder."