HSTA welcomes advocacy UniServ director for Central, Honolulu, Kauai chapters

Scott Miller joined HSTA as its new advocacy UniServ director for Central, Honolulu, and Kauai chapters late last month bringing years of experience in education, law, and teacher advocacy to his role.

Miller, originally from Lake Oswego, Oregon, started his undergraduate degrees in German and psychology at Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, before finishing college in Germany. He attended Purdue University where he earned his master’s in German linguistics and taught advanced German at Purdue for three years. He later taught high school German, math, English, ESL, and special education for three years.

After teaching, Miller became an administrator in Colorado Springs and was the ESL (English as a second language) director for Sierra High School for a year while applying for law school. Because of the workload inequities Miller saw while teaching high school, he was inspired to apply to law school with the goal of getting into UniServ work and representing teachers.

He earned his law degree from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon, in 2005, and worked for several law firms in Salem, focusing on labor law, arbitration, contract law, and criminal defense. He then found a job with the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) as a UniServ Director where he said they gave him “the most difficult county in the state.”

Over eight years, Miller did field representative work, investigations, grievances, and arbitrations, while also serving as MSEA’s chief negotiator. His focus was turning adversarial labor relations climates into positive climates.

Miller says his proudest moment was helping a teacher get her job back after she was under criminal investigation for striking a student, an allegation that proved to be false. He strongly advocated for the teacher, involved the parent-teacher association, and she became the teacher of the year two years later.

He also helped the teachers get a 7% pay raise in negotiations.

After training at the National Education Association’s UniServ Academy in advanced advocacy and arbitration in 2006, Miller taught at the academy from 2008 to 2012 and led classes in arbitration and advanced member advocacy in New Mexico, Georgia, and Texas—all during his tenure as a UniServ director in Maryland. He’s also worked with local affiliates in Oregon, Colorado, and Virginia.

In early 2014, he started consulting work related to arbitrations and bargaining, but on the other side of the table, for small school districts in Pennsylvania, as well as for leaders in elected office and administrators.

Miller moved back to Oregon in 2017 and worked in labor relations in the private sector before passing the Oregon bar exam in 2020.

For Hawaii’s public school teachers, Miller said, “There are a lot of opportunities to make their working conditions better and to improve the educational climate. My biggest strength is transforming labor relations climates from adversarial to collaborative, and there’s room for that, too.”

In his new role, he looks forward to building relationships and “just doing everything I can to make this a better system for the teachers.” Miller plans on becoming a member of the Hawaii bar while continuing to represent teachers in the Honolulu, Central and Kauai chapters.

Miller moved to Oahu last month after many visits to the islands. He started vacationing in Kauai in 2002, when he surfed for the first time.

“I’m a former distance runner and my knees went bad, so it’s a perfect substitute sport,” Miller said.

In his free time, Miller enjoys surfing, astronomy, and reading.