Three weeks ago, Olomana School teacher Wima Chulakote was celebrating his selection as the Hawaii State Teacher of the Year.

Friday, on the first of 17 mandatory furlough days for public school teachers, Chulakote and his wife, Fern Elementary School teacher Mira Soekias, were left to wonder whether Chulakote would have to get a second job to make up for the nearly 8 percent loss of income their household will have to absorb for the next two years.

Chulakote and Soekias are among some 13,000 teachers affected by a furlough program expected to save the state more than $60 million per year. Like many of their peers, the couple is coping with growing unease about the long- and short-term impact of lost instruction days on their students, public perception that they have abandoned their students, and their own financial and professional futures.

"We'll definitely have to cut back on things," Chulakote said. "I may have to get a part-time job, but that would impact the amount of time I have to tutor my students outside of class. We'll have to look at it when the time comes, but we'll definitely have to juggle."

WIDER LEARNING GAP

Chulakote said he was less concerned about the impact of "furlough Fridays" on his family than about how the loss of 17 school days, the equivalent of more than three weeks of face-to-face classes, will affect the at-risk students to whom he has devoted his career.

The Department of Education honored Chulakote for his commitment to his students, noting that he regularly meets with his young charges at malls or fast-food restaurants on nights and weekends just to make sure they get the help they need to succeed in school, even devoting personal time to working with students seeking to take the General Education Development test.

Chulakote said while he will continue to work with students outside of class, the loss of 17 official instructional days will have a major impact on his students, all of whom have faced educational difficulties in the past.

"We definitely won't be able to cover everything, so we'll have to decide what is most important to cover," he said. "Our students are so far behind from regular school, and now they'll be even more behind — with no time to catch up."

Like other experienced educators, Chulakote anticipates that the extra day off each week will negatively impact the remaining days of instruction.

"They'll have too much time on their hands and by the time Monday comes around, they are not going to be ready to study," he said. "Especially at Olomana, with the kind of population we have, they come back from a two-day weekend and they're not ready. With three-day weekends, they'll be even more of a handful."

ADDED PRESSURE

Soekias said the furloughs come at a time when schools like Fern Elementary are already struggling to meet minimum standards for performance. She said the loss of face-to-face instructional time will put further strain on schools already forced to make hard decisions about their curricula.

Fern Elementary is being restructured under provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"When you teach at a school with a heavy immigrant population, where a lot of families are below the poverty level, you have to work a lot harder," Soekias said. "Every teacher here feels so pressured. We have to do everything to help raise test scores, so instruction is highly academic, and non-academic activities have been cut out.

"We used to spend weeks getting ready for May Day or Christmas programs, but now they've been shortened or cut out. We don't have painting in kindergarten anymore. It's difficult to say what the effects of this will be. Some students may not recognize the nonacademic talents that they have unless it happens on their own outside," she said.

Losing one day a week can only make the challenge of raising test scores more difficult, she said.

Compounding teachers' frustrations is the perception in some circles that the teachers themselves are to blame for negotiating for furloughs instead of a straight pay cut or furloughs that would have overlapped with holidays.

"It always seems like we're the ones who are blamed because we're on the front lines," Soekias said.

SHARING THE BURDEN

Corey Yasuda, a kindergarten teacher at Kaleiopuu Elementary in Waipahu, said Hawaii State Teachers Association members acted in part out of concern that subsequent proposals from the state would include even more drastic cost-cutting measures.

"Initially, our negotiation team wanted zero furlough days, but that fact seems to get lost in the overall pictures," Yasuda said. "(The state) at first proposed a much higher pay cut through furloughs, and eventually it got down to 17 days, (the equivalent of) a 7.94 percent cut. The governor backed us into a corner. We knew that we had to help with the deficit and a lot of us felt that if we waited any longer, she'd ask for more.

"We got a deal, but a lot of us felt bad that we got a pay cut and had to take furloughs," he said. "There's a widespread perception that we wanted days off, but that's not true. We want kids in school. We want to be back at work."

Yasuda and other teachers said their acceptance of the contract was also based on a sense of fairness given what public school educators already sacrifice to their jobs.

"Most of us already come in early and stay late," he said. "Some of us work with students on weekends. A lot of us spend money out-of-pocket for our classes. People don't care that we already do more than most who work in other jobs.

"We felt that if we have to shoulder a burden, we should have a deal in which everybody feels the effect of what the governor wants," he said. "If there is anything good that comes from this, it might be that people will see the value that they get from our public schools. Maybe they'll see that teachers are an important part of the community."

LIFESTYLE CHANGES

Janise Kim, who teaches business at Mililani High School, said she'll use her furlough days to plan lessons and restructure her courses to adapt to the new schedule. She, too, has heard the grumblings of those who blame HSTA members for accepting the furloughs.

"It's hard," she said. "I understand why the BOE (Board of Education) and HSTA did this. The money has to come from somewhere. But it feels like we're caught in the middle."

"Parents are very upset because their children are losing out on instruction time," she said. "There are some, not all, who view it as the teachers' choice. Some of them wanted us to take a pay cut so it wouldn't cut into the kids' instruction, but that option wasn't presented to us."

Like many other teachers and their families, Kim said she and her husband will need to make adjustments to account for Kim's loss of income.

Their dual income will enable them to pay the mortgage on their newly purchased home, but Kim said they'll likely go out less and put off any vacations. They'll also have less to save for their retirement.

Suzy Wood, a fifth-grade teacher at Kailua Elementary, said she'll have to tighten an already-tight belt to get by.

Anticipating the pay cut, Wood paid ahead on her student loan and other bills to create a buffer just in case she has trouble covering her expenses later on. She said she'll also have to ask her 20-year-old daughter to start paying rent.

"I'll be eating a lot of beans and saimin," Wood said. "I thought I'd be a little more comfortable at this point in my life. It's sad that I'm still struggling."

'HARD NOT TO TEACH'

Still, like Chulakote and others, Wood said she is more concerned about the impact of the furloughs on her students.

Wood said the loss of instruction days puts enormous pressure on schools already cutting programs to focus on subjects deemed essential to satisfy the requirements of No Child Left Behind and on students who will be expected to learn at a faster pace without the benefit of as much face-to-face help from teachers.

"We're already struggling to meet standards, and now we can only focus on the most important ones," she said. "Music, P.E., social studies, science are all being cut out because we have to do better in language arts and math.

"I just can't believe that Linda Lingle couldn't find the money elsewhere," she said. "Robbing children of 17 days of instruction is not the answer because it affects their future. In elementary school, we're trying to lay a foundation and these furlough days cut into what we can do.

"It's hard not to teach. It's hard to know that our students will fall behind. And when will they ever catch up?"