‘Enough is enough’: HSTA issues official demand for impact bargaining

The Hawaii State Teachers Association Wednesday morning submitted to interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi and Board of Education Chairperson Catherine Payne a demand for negotiations with regard to changes in teachers’ terms and conditions of employment for this school year.

HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. explained, “Last year, we had a memorandum of understanding that allowed schools to switch to alternative modes of instruction, including distance and hybrid. But the state refused to bargain a new MOU for this school year, insisting instead that all schools would return to in-person learning with very limited alternatives. This poor planning means there are no set provisions for distance instruction and no guarantees of key health and safety protocols. Enough is enough.”

HSTA also sent an open letter to interim Superintendent Hayashi, board chair Catherine Payne, and Gov. David Ige calling for increased safety and response in light of rising COVID-19 cases.⁣ The letter was cosigned by nearly 2,000 educators across the state.

In a news conference Wednesday, Tui outlined the stark discrepancy between what officials are telling the public and what’s really happening in Hawaii’s public schools.

As an example, Tui referred to officials’ theories of bubbles or cohorting to keep students safe as “more of a fantasy than reality.”

He said, “There is no cohorting at anything other than an elementary school, and even in an elementary school when the student comes into the class, they call that a bubble, but the students exit and enter the bubble all the time during the school day.

“Parents are being told by Gov. Ige, interim Superintendent Hayashi, Department of Health Director Dr. Libby Char, and school administrators that their children will be kept safe. But how can teachers follow that directive when many have packed classes and impossibly little opportunity to safely distance students?” Tui said. “In many of our classrooms students are forced to sit side by side at desks that seat two students. Teachers also have little control over what students do when they arrive onto or leave campus, ride the school bus, play at recess with friends and pack hallways when the rains come down. They’re also standing in long lines in crowded cafeterias where all are entitled to free meals this year.”

HSTA Secretary-Treasurer Lisa Morrison is an arts and communication teacher at Maui High who sees roughly 80 students each day in her classroom.

“I know that my seating chart doesn’t reveal everything that happens in my classroom,” Morrison said. “Currently in my classroom I have large desks that seat six, and I’m doing my best to keep people separate when I can, but I have classes as large as 26 so it’s just not possible. And that’s at a school that I feel is doing a good job trying to be careful.

“So even though the administrators are the ones being tasked with identifying quarantine and close contacts, it’s going to happen inconsistently from school to school and from classroom to classroom,” Morrison said.

HSTA President Tui said this inconsistency is causing great confusion among staff and the community.

Tui said, “Some administrators err on the side of caution by quarantining an entire class when a positive case is reported. At other schools, administrators only quarantined one or two students whose desks were shown on a seating chart to be directly next to a child who tested positive. Other schools have quarantined just the positive child without identifying any close contacts. Teachers don’t know whether students are gone from their class as a result of a positive result or by being a close contact. Other staff like our counselors constantly wonder if they worked with a student who tested positive.

“On Maui, teachers at one school received a list of students who shouldn’t be on campus, only to find that those students are sitting right there in their classes,” Tui continued. “Then there’s the problem of timing. Positive cases identified on a Friday could mean that close contacts aren’t notified until Monday.

“It’s clear these quarantine protocols are anything but strict, despite what the department and our governor claim,” Tui concluded.

Tui says an overall lack of planning is forcing schools to scramble when COVID-19 cases pop up.

“More and more, we’re seeing schools having to shut down classrooms and quarantine dozens upon dozens of students at a time, or move children to cafeterias when multiple teachers are forced to quarantine. There are just not enough substitute teachers out there to cover for teachers who are told not to report to work,” Tui said.

Morrison, a Maui High teacher, says this ultimately hurts the very learning officials stress is so important for keiki.

“I’m concerned because since the department did not have a plan from the beginning to do this safely, that it’s more of a disruption to school than we had at times last year,” Morrison said. “I think the biggest problem that I have heard of is that there is a shortage of adults available to supervise the rest of the children who are still in school. I know that other schools have had to send staff in order to help out, which just means that we have a larger number of people who are moving in and out inevitably, which is problematic.”

HSTA’s demand for impact bargaining aims to resolve the issues that result from these quarantines, which have, the letter states, “resulted in many schools directing their teachers to engage in telework (providing instruction from a remote location) while quarantining and blended learning instructional delivery, both of which are changes in the working conditions of Bargaining Unit 05 employees.”

HSTA President Tui said, “We need the department, the board, and the governor to work with us so we can all truly ensure the safety our students deserve. Some of our charter schools are already making the wise choice to move to distance learning. If the department wants to do something similar, especially in areas where transmission is greatest, they need to work with us to negotiate those impacts.”