Late Thursday, a Hawaii State Teachers Association member alerted us that the Hawaii State Department of Education published a memo and procedures outlining a new process for school-level personnel to process their telework applications.

The memo responds to testimony from HSTA members that prompted the Hawaii State Board of Education to take important action at their Oct. 1 meeting

This new telework process only applies to salaried positions (including teachers) and the memo indicates that any school level employee telework application must utilize the online process after Oct. 8. More information can be found at this HIDOE website.

Teachers at the district or state office will need to continue to utilize the paper telework application process.

The BOE now requires administrators to provide reasons for approval or denial for telework in writing. If a telework request is approved, and a school is in a hybrid learning model, telework is only allowed to be approved for the distance learning portion of hybrid learning.

Teachers may want to consider reapplying for telework given the new direction from the BOE. If you have been denied and you meet all of the requirements, please let us know here as we are still collecting information that would substantiate that administrators are not supporting options for telework.