In the last four days, the Hawaii State Teachers Association has received reports of employees at seven Oahu schools diagnosed with COVID-19, even before students return to public school campuses on Monday.
Since Aug. 12, one coronavirus case has been reported at each of the following schools:
- Fern Elementary
- Holomua Elementary
- Leihoku Elementary
- Mililani High
- Roosevelt High
- Wahiawa Middle
- Waikele Elementary
These new outbreaks come in addition to 13 cases previously reported on public school campuses dating back to June 26, a total of 11 staff members and two students.
HSTA President Corey Rosenlee said, “The HSTA is doing our best to inform the public and parents about each individual school, but the teachers’ union should not have to do the job of the Department of Education and the Department of Health. The DOE and DOH should inform the public as each case occurs.
"We appreciate the efforts of administrators in this difficult time who are notifying parents, such as Fred Murphy at Mililani High. Other principals need to follow his fine example," Rosenlee said.
“Private schools in Hawaii, including Kamehameha Schools, Punahou School, Iolani School, and Sacred Hearts Academy, have already taken the important safety measure of reporting positive cases on their campuses,” Rosenlee added.
“The new cases logged this week happened just days before thousands of students are set to report for face-to-face learning on Monday, in spite of HSTA's strong recommendation to transition to 100-percent distance learning,” Rosenlee said.
More than two hours after the HSTA posted this web story on its social media channels Saturday, the HIDOE shared this chart on its website and social media, which it said will be updated weekly on Fridays, listing cases only by complex area and not by school or specific location.
“The HIDOE's approach releasing vague information once a week is the opposite of what the public needs during a pandemic: specific, timely updates,” Rosenlee said.
Numerous schools Thursday and Friday made the wise choice to switch to grab-and-go distance learning material pick up operations, rolling back face-to-face meetings of an hour or longer, after HSTA spotlighted dangerous reopening plans in spite of the rapidly rising case counts. But some schools across the islands are still planning to have students on campuses for hours or even the full day starting Monday.
Public, union don’t know how many staff are quarantined
Staff who’d been in contact with infected coworkers have been quarantined and in some cases, school leaders sent all employees home immediately as a precaution while facilities were sanitized, educators at the schools said.
While some public school districts across the country routinely disclose the number of coronavirus cases affecting staff and students at each school and the number of people who are quarantined, Hawaii does not. The Hawaii State Department of Education has only released information on these cases after the news media inquired and HIDOE has not identified the schools where the coronavirus afflicted staff members.
After the HSTA held a news conference Tuesday to express concern that while staff at schools with confirmed COVID-19 cases were being notified but parents and the public were not, HIDOE released a list of cases by complex area, without naming the schools affected.
Principals forced to do contract tracing because of health department shortcomings
In emails and messages to school staff in recent days, principals are telling the staff they’ve been forced to add contact tracing duties to their already-busy duties because the state Department of Health’s (DOH) tracing staff has been overwhelmed by the recent surge in cases. State contact tracers have also suffered from a lack of staffing and mismanagement.
Principals’ messages to staff include this upsetting admission: “Because DOH is busy with an increased caseload we have done initial notifications to those we feel might have been in close contact and they have been approved for telework for a two week period as a precautionary measure.”
“Our principals are not contact tracers and have not been trained to be contact tracers,” Rosenlee said. “The health department needs to do its job so that principals can concentrate on their jobs.”
This week, Gov. David Ige replaced State Epidemiologist Sarah Park as head of Hawaii’s contact tracing program.
Over the last week, as cases surged consistently into the triple digits, it became clear that Hawaii doesn’t have enough contact tracers to deal with a virus that’s spinning out of control. Thursday marked a one-day record total of 355 new cases.
On Aug. 6, Park made such a bad impression on the Senate Special Committee on COVID-19 that members of the committee showed up unannounced at health department headquarters the next day to speak to overwhelmed case investigators. One of them told senators that supervisors instructed her only to contact those who’d potentially been exposed to the disease who are 65 and older since they are in a higher risk category.
The Hawaii Government Employees Association, the union that represents the contact tracers, has filed a grievance on behalf of the overworked workers, saying there are far fewer tracers actually on the job than health officials have led the union and the public to believe.
On Friday, the whistleblower who came forward to expose problems in the state's COVID-19 tracking program spoke to reporters at a news conference.
HSTA files complaint against state over unsafe, in-person instruction plans
HSTA is taking legal action on two fronts to help protect its members, school staff, and the students they serve. The HSTA plans to file a class grievance on behalf of all members because of violations to the HSTA collective bargaining agreement (contract) and memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with the state of Hawaii in June.
The state committed to language in HSTA’s MOU that “in-person school will resume in conjunction with written guidance from the State of Hawaii Department of Health (DOH).” In particular, the HSTA has requested written guidance on triggers and standards which the DOH has determined when schools are safe to open for in-person learning when they should close and/or should reopen after a closure. Despite repeated requests, the DOH has not provided written guidance on this crucial issue.
On Thursday afternoon, the HSTA filed a prohibited practice complaint with the Hawaii Labor Relations Board. The complaint said on Aug. 12, HIDOE notified HSTA “that it could not provide the union with the number of students expected to report to school on 8/17/20, had no update on any written guidance from the DOH, and could not confirm whether each school had the mandatory written procedures outlined in the MOU.”