Public schools can restore some of the classroom instruction time that could be lost during furlough days for teachers, through a complicated exception process to the state Board of Education.

At a private meeting with Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday afternoon, state schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto and school board and union leaders said schools can request to increase instructional time and convert waiver and planning days to offset furlough days.

Schools, for example, could ask to increase instructional time on Wednesdays, when school days are shorter, to help offset furlough days scheduled for Fridays. Hamamoto said increasing instructional time on nonfurlough days could restore a few hours of classroom instruction each week and lessen the impact of furloughs. Schools could also convert some of the six waiver and planning days to instructional time.

Such a request must go before a campus's School Community Council and requires a two-thirds' vote of its teachers, according to Hamamoto. If endorsed at the school level, the request then goes before a four-member panel of the BOE and the Hawaii State Teachers Association and then the full board for final approval.

Hamamoto said several schools have sought exceptions. She said the earliest the school board could act on the requests would be at a meeting on Nov. 5. Asked after the meeting whether she thinks the exceptions would restore some classroom instruction time, she said: "We believe it will."

Hamamoto and others at the private meeting with Lingle also said the governor was open to possibly using the Hurricane Relief Fund to help with the state's estimated $1 billion budget deficit through June 2011.

Some state lawmakers have suggested using the hurricane relief fund to restore classroom instruction lost to furloughs, but sources familiar with Lingle's position believe she would only consider the fund to help close the deficit and not earmark the money.

PARENTS SCRAMBLE

Uncertainty reigns, meanwhile, just two days before the first of 17 "furlough Fridays" kicks in for Hawaii's public schools.

Some parents are still scrambling to line up child care, while others who vowed to hire teachers to teach their kids have given up in the face of Department of Education requirements.

Other parents who do have programs in place at their children's schools are still trying to iron out the details.

Thousands of schoolkids are expected to wind up in dozens of private child care operations in public parks, or in performing arts classes or environmental educational settings. Other kids will wind up at grandma's house or will simply be unsupervised at Hawaii's beaches and malls.

But really, no one knows for sure what to expect come Friday morning.

The picture may become even more complicated today with attorney Eric Seitz planning to file suit seeking an injunction to block the furloughs.

Seitz will file a motion in U.S. District Court for injunctive relief on behalf of "everybody affected by the furloughs," he said, as well as special education students and parents and students in charter schools.

While some parents continue to search for something constructive for their children to do on furlough Fridays, parents at schools such as King Liholiho Elementary in Kaimukí are organizing alternative instruction for their children at their school.

Like other parent groups, the Parent Teacher Association at Liholiho found it would cost about $24 per student to use the school classrooms, hire teachers, pay for liability insurance and for other expenses — all while working around DOE policies that bar teachers from receiving outside pay to tutor their usual students, said Lylah Reid-Akana, president of Liholiho's PTA.

The association also is working to design a program that reviews information the children already know and does not advance what every student would normally learn, which also would violate DOE policies, she said.

"We cannot do any DOE-type lessons," Reid-Akana said. "We cannot use any DOE supplies or any of their work because that would let some children have advantages where others do not if they're not in the program. There are still a lot of details to work out. The teachers we're hiring are either part-time or retired or they are teachers who do have their teaching degrees but work in other capacities."

Other parent groups, such as the Parent Teacher Student Association at 'Aikahi Elementary in Kailua, looked at the same issues and gave up their plans to organize a similar program at their school, said Debbie Schatz, co-president of Aikahi's PTSA.

"There were all kinds of ethics concerns," Schatz said. "The more we explored the idea the more we realized it would be a Band-Aid ... and there are still a lot of parents out there who wouldn't be able to afford $25 per day, or any amount."

'CAUGHT OFF-GUARD'

The furloughs are the result of a new teachers' contract aimed at helping to close the state's budget deficit, and the plan is throwing some families' routines into chaos.

Ray Benzing has a 15-year-old son, Sam, a sophomore at Kaläheo High School, and a 10-year-old daughter, Grace, a fifth-grader at Enchanted Lake Elementary School, who will both be idle on Fridays. Benzing's wife will have to reduce her work hours on Fridays to take care of their kids and Grace may have to go to work with her dad on some Fridays, Ray Benzing said.

Even as Kalaheo High School's PTSA president, Benzing said, "a bunch of us were caught off-guard by the teacher furloughs."

He particularly worries about what will happen to the study habits of high school students such as his son, Sam.

"He likes the fact that he doesn't have to go to school, but I want my kids to have something positive to do on those furlough days," Benzing said. "That's 17 extra days that high school kids will be wandering around. We believe that the education of Hawaii's students should not be jeopardized to balance the state's budget."

PARENTS PROTEST

Vernadette Gonzalez, an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii, worries about the message the furloughs are sending to students such as her kindergartner, Inez Anderson, age 5, about the importance of education.

Inez attends Noelani Elementary, the same grade school Honolulu-born Barack Obama attended. And Gonzalez finds it ironic that President Obama is pushing for more class time for the nation's school children while his alma mater is cutting back on class time.

So Gonzalez is helping to organize a "walk-in" protest on Noelani's grass field on Friday in which parents and students will hold a rally at 8 a.m. and design posters and sign petitions for Gov. Linda Lingle and other public officials.

They'll then board buses that will take them to an anti-furlough rally planned for 10 a.m. at the state Capitol, featuring singer Jack Johnson.

"Since education is being taken away, we thought it would be symbolic to stage a 'walk-in' when the schools are being shut down by the state to say, 'We want to learn,' " Gonzalez said. "My daughter doesn't understand why she has no school on Friday."

For now, Gonzalez plans to send her daughter to an extended after-school program at Manoa Valley Church on furlough Fridays.

As a UH professor, Gonzalez believes she has more flexibility in her work day than many other parents.

"But as an educator," she said, "it's killing me. This president is calling for a lengthier school year and the parents at his school are stuck with 17 fewer days. My 5-year-old is so hungry to learn, and we're taking it away from them."