Gov. Linda Lingle’s staff met with Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto and several members of the state Board of Education today to discuss the details of a proposal to restore 27 classroom days to the public school calendar.

After the meeting, Superintendent Hamamoto said she was “much clearer” on the issues that would need to be hashed out in negotiations with the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which represents some 13,000 public school teachers.
“In giving us a little more details, it helps us to understand and frame what the expectation is,” Hamamoto said. “In collective bargaining and negotiations, the HSTA and the department and the Board of Education will have to sort of dance through all of this. We’re not able to say what is possible or not until we go through crunching the numbers and heavy discussions with the HSTA.”
Hamamoto said she expects conversations with the teachers union to begin soon. She could not be specific about a time table.
For about 45 minutes prior to the BOE’s afternoon meeting, the superintendent, along with BOE members Maggie Cox and John Penebacker met with Lingle’s staff, including Linda Smith, senior policy advisor to Lingle, and Marie Laderta, director of the state Department of Human Resources Development.
Board of Education Chairman Garrett Toguchi said one of the issues under discussion is whether the $50 million out of the state’s rainy day fund will be able to pay for 12 furlough days, which the governor’s plan specifies. He estimated it might be $10 million to $12 million short, since it costs about $5 million a day to operate the school system.
“We’re not sure if that is enough,” Toguchi said.