An applicant from California won the most board votes in an initial straw poll
Posted: May 19, 2022
A split Hawaii Board of Education Thursday selected Interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi as the next superintendent of schools after a marathon, nearly 12-hour-long meeting during which each of the three finalist candidates made presentations and took questions from board members.
In a surprise, a charter school executive from California, Caprice Young, came out as the leader in an initial straw vote of the board, followed by Hayashi in second and Darrel Galera, a longtime Hawaii public school teacher, principal, and administrator, in third.
Each of the three finalists was allotted 15 minutes to present their vision for Hawaii’s public schools followed by a little more than an hour each of questions from the board members. Each BOE member asked them the same question focusing on key competencies such as communication, leadership, serving diverse students, etc.
After hearing from all three candidates, reading written testimony, and listening to oral testimony Thursday afternoon, the board took a non-binding straw poll to rank their first, second, and third choices. The poll of nine board members found four first-place votes for Young, three first-place votes for Hayashi, and two for Galera. The second-place votes had five for Galera, two each for Hayashi and Young. The third-place votes were four for Hayashi, three for Young, and two for Galera.
All nine voting BOE members and the two nonvoting members next spoke about their impressions of the candidates and then they conducted a second straw poll in which five people voted for Hayashi as their first choice, four for Young, and no first-place votes for Galera. In second place, Galera earned five votes, Young got two second-place votes and Hayashi got just one.
In a third straw vote in which Galera was eliminated after garnering no first-place votes previously, five members voted for Hayashi and four backed Young. The board then took a formal vote about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, nearly 12 hours after the start of the meeting, which came out eight-to-one in favor of Hayashi, with three of Young’s supporters backing Hayashi “in solidarity.”
After the final vote, Hayashi told the board, “I look forward to working together with the board in creating a very robust strategic plan that will help move our schools forward. I look forward to working with each and every one of you. I pledge my commitment to open communication and dialogue in support of our students.”
“This means a great deal. I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead our public schools in Hawaii,” Hayashi added.
Following the board vote Thursday, Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui, Jr. said, “The HSTA looks forward to working with Keith Hayashi as we continue to emerge from the pandemic to improve our public school system together.”
Hayashi says top priority is keeping schools safe, open
Much earlier in the day, Hayashi began his presentation at about 10:35 a.m. Thursday before the BOE by reading from a written script and saying, “My focus and highest priority remains on keeping schools safe and open for learning. We needed to perform triage and stabilize our system to allow for a successful recovery. Now as we begin to emerge from the pandemic, we are pivoting to a strategic focus on student learning and preparing students for their exciting future.”
“To set the course for a thriving future, we need a strategic plan embraced by all stakeholders, one that provides a roadmap for where we want to be in public education in Hawaii and how we are going to get there together,” said Hayashi, who has been interim superintendent since Aug. 1 and before that was principal at Waipahu High.
“If I have the privilege of serving as superintendent, I commit to working with you to set a clear vision, develop a powerful strategic plan, one that is also purposeful, and implement the adopted plan at all levels within our system,” he added.
First, he said, “We must set a clear vision for public education to unify and inspire from the classroom to the Capitol. It starts with a shared vision between the department and you, the board. We must come to the table, have an honest conversation about where we are and where we see our schools in three years.”
Hayashi’s second step involves what he described as “the collaborative development of the strategic plan.”
“I propose starting the (strategic plan) process for community engagement by the summer, vetting our shared vision and collecting input from all stakeholders. What needs to change to achieve this vision? What are the challenges and the barriers and how will we overcome them?” Hayashi said.
He proposed developing three-year implementation plans at all levels in the department: Schools, complex areas, and state offices.
“While schools in complex areas are accustomed to creating implementation plans or strategic plans, this will be a new accountability system for state offices. A tri-level system is at its strongest when there is interdependent alignment. That alignment must be focused on supporting students. The implementation plan at the state office level will deal with how we support student success, including working with our sister state agencies,” Hayashi said.
“I am firmly committed to working together with all of you to move from responding to the pandemic, with the initial goal of keeping schools open, to accelerating purposeful learning to achieve our shared vision together,” Hayashi added.
Galera: ‘teacher well being needs to be a number one priority’
During his presentation that began at 9 a.m. Thursday, Galera spoke extemporaneously and started by saying “focusing on teacher engagement, teacher well being needs to be a number one priority in what we do.”
Research shows that only about 30% of our teachers are engaged following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Galera, a longtime principal at Moanalua High and administrator in the HIDOE.
“That means that 70% are disengaged or actively disengaged. We define teacher engagement as being that emotional commitment that the teacher has to the goals of the school and the discretionary effort that he or she has to go above and beyond. What we may be dealing with is a new pandemic in disengagement and with the problems that we’ve been facing for the longest time in a way with the teacher shortage, a problem with teacher disengagement will just compound the challenges we have of trying to have school reform and achieve the excellence that we’re looking for,” Galera told the board.
“The good news is this: If we can focus on this as a system and we can create an engaged teacher workforce, it can be a 61% decrease in teachers leaving the profession,” Galera added.
Galera also said he supported:
- Empowering approaches vs. top-down compliance to engage, communicate and effectively collaborate to solve problems together
- Equity, excellence, and innovation
- Creating a new state strategic plan, including a deep study of accreditation reports at all schools
- Transforming the HIDOE from a K-12 system to a pre-K to 12 system
“The next superintendent needs to be the champion of universal early learning,” Galera said.
Galera said the school system “can create the greatest plan,” but needs to focus on implementation
“I’m not the smartest one in the room. It’s collectively what we can do together,” Galera added, repeatedly emphasizing collaboration with teachers and staff to improve schools.
The board also heard a presentation from and asked questions of Caprice Young, who has served as the superintendent and CEO of several charter school systems in the continental United States, their sizes ranging from 4,000 to 49,000 students. She now lives in the Los Angeles area, but her family lived in Hawaii and her mother taught special education at Kalihi Elementary. Since January 2019, Young has been the national superintendent of Lifelong Learning and Learn4Life Schools, a group of 20 nonprofit groups serving students in 85 schools.