Honolulu -- The Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) today announced that its members have voted in favor of an agreement reached by the Association and the Board of Education that would restore a full school year for students and greatly reduce teacher furlough days for the remainder of the 2009-2010 school year and the 2010-2011 school year. The next step will be for the legislature to fund this supplemental agreement to the current master contract. Then it will be up to the governor to release the funds in order for the agreement to be implemented and for students to return to the classroom full time.

The vote was 84.5 percent in favor of and 13.5 percent opposed to the agreement. “The margin in favor of restoring a full school year for students sends a strong message to the legislature and the community that our members are eager to be back in school and return to the normal school year that our children need,” HSTA President Wil Okabe said.

Agreement Terms
"We were able to balance some very hard choices and reach an agreement we believe is fair. In return for fewer furlough days and a corresponding restoration of pay, teachers will have fewer non-instructional days, which represents a sacrifice by teachers, who already work long hours," Okabe said.

The agreement fully restores all remaining student days in the current year and all student days in the 2010-2011 school year. The result will be that students will have a full school year next year, as they did before the furloughs were implemented. For the current (2009-10) school year, the agreement provides for the state to appropriate approximately $24.5 million to eliminate the four remaining furlough days this school year. In return, students will be given an additional full day of instruction; and the last teacher work day of the year will be converted to a half day with students.

For the next (2010-2011) school year, the agreement provides for the state to appropriate approximately $67.5 million to eliminate eleven furlough days. The remaining six furlough days for teachers will be scheduled on non-instructional days as follows: Two days at the beginning of the school year (one administrator day and one teacher day); teacher institute day; three planning collaboration/waiver days as scheduled by the Board of Education.

The supplemental agreement is consistent with the HSTA positions that retention of some non-instructional days is necessary for teachers to maintain quality education. To offset the loss of some planning collaboration/waiver days to furloughs, the contractual provision that permits administrators to use up to eight preparation periods for their own purposes will be suspended for the school year. To allow for important member communication in place of institute day, HSTA may hold two (2) informational meetings (up to 95 minutes each) each semester.

The cost estimates in the agreement include all DOE employees. The Board of Education proposals to HGEA and UPW are currently under review.

The agreement's reduction of furlough days will result in a corresponding increase in compensation for bargaining unit 05 members. The overall impact for the current school year and next school year combined will be to bring the pay cut down from 7.94 percent to 4.44 percent.

Critical timeline
With the approval of the tentative agreement, the Board of Education can now submit it to the legislature for funding. Furlough days will end if the legislature appropriates the necessary funds and the governor releases those funds by the following dates: April 21, 2010 for the current year (next scheduled furlough day is April 23, 2010) and July 8, 2010 for next school year. If funding is not achieved, the supplemental agreement will not be implemented and the school calendars for this and next year will continue as planned with “furlough Fridays.”

Okabe concluded, "Students need to be in school for the duration of a traditional school year. Teachers want to be there teaching them. Through this agreement, the Board of Education and HSTA have taken the initiative to work toward a positive solution. We ask for the support of the legislature, the governor, the parents and the entire community, which will ultimately benefit from this agreement."

About the Hawaii State Teachers Association
The Hawaii State Teachers Association is the exclusive representative of more than 13,000 public school teachers statewide. As the state affiliate of the 3.2-million member National Education Association, HSTA represents and supports teachers in collective bargaining, as well as with legislative and professional development issues.