The superintendent’s leadership has been criticized by principals, teachers, parents

After receiving an overwhelming amount of written and oral testimony critical of the leadership of Hawaii’s controversial state schools superintendent Christina Kishimoto, the Hawaii Board of Education’s Human Resources Committee postponed a vote to consider whether to approve her new contract.

The committee unanimously voted to defer the measure to a subsequent meeting to take place no later than March 18 with the stipulation that at least eight of nine board members be present.

“Because this is such a critical topic, I think the board needs to have time to fully discuss the issues that we’ve heard in the testimony,” said Catherine Payne, committee member and full board chair. “I don’t want to show a lack of respect for all of the people who have testified, because I truly feel your heartfelt testimony and your concerns, but I do feel like we have a responsibility to have more time for this discussion.”

In reaction to the delay, HSTA President Corey Rosenlee said, “The HSTA fully understood even before the committee deferred a vote today that the final decision would need to be made by the full Board of Education. The HSTA maintains its position that the BOE should not renew the superintendent’s contract and we urge the BOE to take this action at its next meeting.”

All nine people who testified remotely during Thursday’s committee meeting opposed renewing the superintendent’s contract.

Rebecca Hadley-Schlosser, a special education teacher at Nanaikapono Elementary on Oahu’s Leeward Coast, was one of them.

“I strongly urge you not to renew Superintendent Kishimoto’s contract this year,” she testified. “She’s proven over the course of the last year that she does not care about her employees. She has pushed to open schools with an insufficient plan in place to ensure our safety. She’s attempted to discontinue shortage differentials that were effective in reducing the shortages. Trainings for teachers at the beginning of the school year were hastily thrown together, and in some cases had either broken links or numerous videos on the same topic.”

Mike Landes, a social studies teacher at Lahainaluna High, serves 1,449 teachers on Maui as their HSTA Maui Chapter president.

Landes told board members that Kishimoto has shown “a lack of leadership. Her employees, our students, and their families desperately need leadership that we can trust. But that trust has been broken time and time again. Over the past year, I have been contacted by Maui teachers on a near-daily basis about the DOE’s lack of leadership.”

Derek Minakami, principal of Kaneohe Elementary, is president of the Hawaii Government Employees Association’s Unit 6, which represents principals and other educational officers across the state.

Minakami told board members he and his principal colleagues “asked for clear and consistent direction that all schools should be implementing. While we appreciate the goal of empowering school leaders, when it comes to health and safety, there should not be much variability in what is expected. Instead, we hear of decisions once they have already been made and after they’ve been released to the public.

“We’re left to make plans without clear guidance, leading to a disparity of implementation, such as with graduation ceremonies, or the implementation of blended learning, leaving us as leaders to suffer the comparisons made by parents and the public,” Minakami said.

Before hearing testimony, the committee met in closed-door executive session for about a half-hour, according to its agenda to engage in “consultation with the Board’s attorney on questions and issues pertaining to the Board’s powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and liabilities concerning new Superintendent Employment Contract.”

An overwhelming number of people who submitted written testimony to the BOE asked the committee not to renew Kishimoto’s contract.

On Tuesday, the HSTA held a news conference to explain why its Board of Directors voted unanimously to oppose her reappointment.

Kishimoto began her original three-year stint as superintendent on Aug. 1, 2017. The BOE later granted her a one-year extension that expires July 31, 2021. Her contract pays her $240,000 a year as well as an auto allowance of $326 a month.