HSTA opposes outsourcing distance educator jobs to non-residents
Posted: September 3, 2021
The Hawaii Board of Education last week asked the Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) whether there were ways to allow new teachers from the continental United States to reside there and be able to teach remotely.
Board member Kaimana Barcarse said, “It seems to me that especially during a pandemic and the economic crisis we’re in, that possibly changing that would create more opportunity for our students to get highly qualified distance learning remotely.”
Media recently picked up on those remarks. However, Hawaii law prohibits this type of employment by state or county government workers. Hawaii Revised Statutes §78-1(c) states:
All persons seeking employment with the government of the State or in the service of any county shall be citizens, nationals, or permanent resident aliens of the United States, or eligible under federal law for unrestricted employment in the United States, and shall become residents of the State within thirty days after beginning their employment and as a condition of eligibility for continued employment.
Additionally, interim Assistant Superintendent for the Office of Talent Management Sean Bacon stated that issues have already come up about telework provisions which don’t allow for employees’ primary work location to be outside of the state.
If an employee in such a situation were to get hurt, there would be jurisdictional issues related to workers compensation, Bacon said. The same holds true regarding employment-related taxes when people work from other states, he added.
“HSTA has grave concerns about any discussion related to the outsourcing of the teaching profession to people who do not reside here in our state,” said Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui, Jr.
“Our students deserve highly qualified educators who understand the local needs in our communities and can relate to their students in a way that an instructor based outside of Hawaii would not be able to provide,” Tui said.
Department officials said current educators were not considered for distance learning positions.
Bacon told the board, “We didn’t want to leave a void at the schools at this point right now by taking somebody out of a school and putting them in the state program, so we were really trying to see what we could do to try to avoid putting any additional strains on the school at this point.”
HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. has said for months that Hawaii-based teachers should have been hired for distance instruction.
Earlier this summer, Tui said HIDOE should use hundreds of millions in federal stimulus money to increase statewide distance learning capacity.
“A lot of teachers would love that opportunity to be able to teach in these innovative new ways and students all across the state could be able to access it from Kaʻu or Hana,” Tui told PBS Hawaii Insights in early July. “This technology allows so many new things. This is the chance now to try and explore those things.”