Teachers encouraged to speak out at teacher compensation focus groups

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Education is partnering with the Experience Management Institute (EXMI) on a comprehensive Compensation Impact Study focused on teacher salary compression.

This study builds upon the 2020 Teacher Compensation Study and will focus on:

• Evaluating the competitiveness of the current teacher salary schedule
• Assessing salary compression within the schedule
• Understanding educator perceptions of past schedule adjustments

To ensure the study reflects the voices of Hawaiʻi’s educators, EXMI is conducting virtual focus groups in May and June. These sessions will help shape future recommendations to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers statewide.

Focus group dates and times:

• Wednesday, May 21 at 3:15 p.m. and 6 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 28 at 3:15 p.m. and 6 p.m.
• Wednesday, June 4 at 3:15 p.m. and 6 p.m.

We encourage you to register for one of these sessions and share your experiences. Your input is vital to this process.

Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association President Osa Tui, Jr. asked HSTA members to “encourage your colleagues to sign up and express their views on compensation. If you recall, similar focus groups were held pre-pandemic before shortage differentials and compression fixes were implemented.”

Based on the previous surveys and HIDOE consultations with HSTA, in the spring of 2020, HIDOE began paying the following shortage differentials to nearly 4,000 teachers:

• About 2,100 educators in 13 complex areas received hard-to-staff differentials of between $3,000 and $8,000 a year, depending on the severity of the shortages in their complexes.
• Roughly 1,700 classroom special education teachers began receiving $10,000 annual shortage differentials.
• More than 100 Hawaiian language immersion teachers who are deemed fluent in Hawaiian qualified for $8,000 yearly differentials.
  

Then in the fall of 2022, nearly 9,200 educators across Hawaiʻi saw their annual pay increase by an average of $6,000 as HIDOE repriced pay levels for senior teachers that had compressed or been stagnant for a number of years during tough economic times.