SHiNE provides resources, support to new Hawaiʻi educators
Posted: May 18, 2023
A committee dedicated to supporting new educators will officially become a permanent fixture of the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association later this year.
Member delegates voted last month to make the Supporting Hawaii’s New Educators (SHiNE) ad hoc committee a standing committee at the HSTA’s 50th annual Convention at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center.
Nearly 90% of delegates voted to approve HSTA Bylaw Amendment 23-3, which called for SHiNE to join HSTA’s four other standing committees: Government Relations, Negotiations, Human and Civil Rights, and Membership Services.
The amendment was automatically changed in HSTA’s bylaws and goes into effect Sept. 1. The committee will become an official part of the organization unless members introduce and approve a subsequent bylaw amendment to remove it at a future convention.
While addressing delegates at the convention, Victoria Zupancic, academic coordinator at Lahainaluna High School and state chair of the SHiNE Committee, explained the importance of the committee’s work.
“I want you all to take a moment and remember the first day you stepped into your own classroom,” she said. “Most of you entered with excitement, a bit of anxiety, and a lot of hope — and then you had your first year of teaching. As one SHiNE committee member commented, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. All of us learned some hard lessons those first years.”
Zupancic says a renewed focus on support will change this outlook for new educators.
“The impact of (teacher) turnover is felt by the entire school community. Our keiki are missing out on the benefit of a veteran educator,” she said. “Now that we are a standing committee, we are able to go and utilize methods within the organization that go beyond just social gatherings or providing curricular resources. We’re able to look at our contract, we’re able to talk about NBIs (new business items), and we’re able to stand up in support of changes that we think we need to do to support new educators.”
Zupancic said that in the last five years, the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education hired 6,558 new educators. “That’s equivalent to almost half our membership. Our new educators need the support of HSTA to make it through those first years,” she said.
In 2015, HSTA established the first ad hoc committee to support new educators called HYPE (Hawaiʻi Young Professional Educators). It was rebranded to SHiNE in 2019 to include support for veteran educators new to teaching in Hawaiʻi.
SHiNE provides tools and resources to support these educators and, as a standing committee with sound financial backing from the union, will be able to sustainably continue and expand this work.
Related resource: New member toolkit
Teachers speak out in support of creating standing new educator committee
At HSTA’s convention last month, Ann Buffington, a third grade teacher at Kealakehe Elementary and Kona Chapter SHiNE committee member, spoke in support of making SHiNE a standing committee.
“SHiNE can help with less teacher turnover by supporting highly qualified new hires. By placing more emphasis on this committee, we are creating a positive support that creates less strain on veteran teachers,” she said.
Tiffany Edwards Hunt, a history teacher at Keʻeau Middle, said, “I am in strong support of us formalizing Supporting Hawaiʻi’s New Educators. I think that it would do a lot to try to retain these teachers, and we’re also sending a political message to people like our Hawaiʻi Legislature that we ourselves as a union are willing to invest in retaining Hawaiʻi’s educators.”
Kaʻu High and Pāhala Elementary School counselor Deborah Lynn Dickerson talked about how she personally benefited from SHiNE.
“I have to say that the materials and information about things that are available to teachers were so valuable to me. I just talked to the Hawaiʻi Federal Credit Union, who I learned about through the SHiNE (committee), and it’s just really helpful to me personally… to learn about the things that are available for teachers.”
AnaLisa Hennessey, a fourth grade teacher at Barbers Point Elementary and Leeward Chapter SHiNE Committee member, told delegates, “Supporting our new educators goes beyond just events and curricular support. It’s about creating better working conditions for new teachers by hearing their voice and being an avenue for them to reach out.
“It’s also about examining our contract and finding areas where we create systemic change that will keep new educators in our profession that we all love,” she added.
Zupancic, SHiNE’s state chair, said she’s looking forward to assembling and maintaining a strong team of teachers to support new educators statewide.
“Your first few years of teaching, you feel like you’re in the dark, and we just want to shine a light on teaching for them,” she said.