HSTA leaders meet with schools superintendent on COVID-19 issues

Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui, Jr. and Andrea Eshelman, HSTA’s deputy executive director and chief negotiator, met with interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi and interim Assistant Superintendent Sean Bacon Monday to present members’ concerns about the continued impacts of COVID-19 on our public schools and the Hawaii State Department of Education’s implementation of the COVID-19 testing mandate.

Despite HSTA expressing serious concerns about inconsistent protocols and reports from members of transmission of COVID-19 on school campuses, Hayashi continued to assert that health safety guidelines are being followed and that there had been no evidence of transmission or clusters of COVID-19 at schools. A few days later, on Friday, the state Department of Health reported some clusters of cases at schools in the islands.

The following list was prepared by the HSTA Negotiations Committee and Team last Saturday and shared with the superintendent during the hour-long meeting on Monday, even though the superintendent made it explicitly clear that the meeting was to be treated as an informal discussion and not a “negotiation.”

Concerns include:

• Inconsistencies in implementation of health and safety guidelines and the lack of timely clear communication from school administrators have resulted in educators not feeling trusted, respected, or supported.
• The teacher of record must always be notified of any student who tests positive or is quarantined. This notification is critical to ensure a complete and accurate profile of a student’s close contacts.
• Increasing numbers of students and teachers quarantining as “close contacts” are creating massive amounts of additional work for teachers who need time to prepare makeup work.
• While HSTA supports options for students to have distance learning, the impacts of changing instructional models must be negotiated.
• Continuing to require in-person faculty meetings creates unnecessary risks that could easily be mitigated with virtual options.
• Failure to provide opportunities for free COVID-19 testing on paid work time is a violation of our contract and the school code.

While HSTA has demanded impact bargaining on the impacts of COVID-19, the employer has so far failed to formally respond to our behest. In Monday’s meeting, Hayashi was noncommittal regarding scheduling any follow-up meetings on the above concerns and would not commit to anything more than “informal” talks.

In addition, when Gov. David Ige implemented his most recent emergency proclamation, he suspended sections of the law including:

“Section 89-9, HRS, scope of negotiations; consultation, section 89-10(d), HRS, written agreements; enforceability; cost items, and section 89-13, HRS, prohibited practices, to the extent necessary to allow State and county departments, agencies, and other public entities to implement policies, practices, procedures, and to take other actions necessary to mitigate risks posed by COVID-19 and its variants, including but not limited to imposition of requirements pertaining to or requiring employee testing and/or vaccination.”

This suspension of law has severely limited the HSTA’s ability to force the employer to the table to bargain. However, it has not negated our contractual rights. HSTA will continue to seek out all possible ways including class and individual grievances to address the changes needed for our members to feel safe and supported at work.