Is Now The Time For Reforming Hawaii Schools?

This article was originally published in Honolulu Civil Beat.

From where the leaders of the Senate Education Committee sit, one thing seems clear: The Hawai‘i public school system is broken. 

“Talk to the people that are on the ground,” Sen. Samantha DeCorte told heads of the Board of Education and education department during a heated January briefing. “According to my community, you guys are failing.”

Lawmakers have become increasingly critical of the DOE since Sen. Donna Kim took charge of the education committee this session. At the January hearing, lawmakers berated the school leaders for millions in school construction funding that remained unspent. In recent months, senators have grilled the department on poor student literacy rates and failure to properly report millions in travel expenses.  

The rising animosity between lawmakers and school leaders has drawn criticism from union leaders and taken some political observers by surprise. But lawmakers’ belief that schools aren’t meeting students’ needs seems to be striking a chord with their communities. An Instagram post by DeCorte asking “Is DOE failing?” sparked thousands of comments and gained more than 20,000 likes from frustrated teachers, parents and the general public. 

Now, lawmakers are proposing a dramatic — but unlikely — reform of the education department. Senate Bill 3334 aims to reshape the DOE by overhauling its current leadership structure and giving more power to school-level committees responsible for soliciting feedback from families and community members.

The bill drew opposition from roughly 200 principals, education department administrators and union leaders earlier this month, who argued that cutting top superintendent positions would reduce support for schools and destabilize the department. Debate on the bill was punctuated by yells and boos outside the hearing room, which Kim later blamed on principals and described as “mob-like tactics”.   

The head of the Hawaiʻi Government Employees Association — the union representing 1,200 school workers, including principals — has called the bill a political ploy allowing lawmakers to settle grudges with principals in their districts and push out school leaders with whom they disagree. 

Kim, meanwhile, acknowledges the bill may not pass in its current form. But she says the proposal comes from high community demand for educational reform and frustrations with DOE’s leadership system, which has grown in size even as student enrollment shrinks. 

State leaders have debated the merits of a statewide school district for generations and have repeatedly argued department leadership is too centralized. But it’s been more than two decades since the last major shakeup to the state system, and some families and community members say change is long overdue.

“There’s real problems going on,” Kim said. “Until we face it straight on, we’re not going to be able to deal with it.” 

Looking Back

More than 20 years ago, lawmakers and school leaders were grappling with the same questions of how to reform public schools amid arguments that DOE leadership was too Oʻahu-centric and failing to serve its students and families. 

In her 2003 state of the state address, former Gov. Linda Lingle argued that the education department was losing families to private schools and called for the statewide school system to be replaced by multiple districts and school boards that would give communities more power at their local campuses. 

“The public knows and we should not be afraid to say it,” Lingle said, “Hawaii’s public school system is broken.”

While the state never went as far as creating multiple school districts, lawmakers passed a comprehensive bill the following year that promised to reform public education. Act 51 changed school funding models, gave principals more training and authority over their budgets and created community councils that gave families and staff a direct say in how local campuses were run. 

It took more than a year to write and finalize the bill, since lawmakers wanted the input and support of school staff, families and unions, said Roy Takumi, who sponsored Act 51 as former chair of the House Education Committee. While the bill gave schools more control over their budgets, lawmakers wanted to make sure principals and community members had enough support to successfully take on these new responsibilities, said Takumi, who currently serves as chair of the Board of Education.  

Kim said her bill is strengthening some of the reforms introduced by Act 51 by giving more power to schools and making top administrators accountable to their communities.

The bill would eliminate the department’s complex area superintendents, who are in charge of overseeing schools and principals in 15 regions, and replace these positions with district-level leaders. The proposal would strengthen accountability for school leaders, Kim said, since district superintendents could report directly to Superintendent Keith Hayashi.  

The bill would also give more power to school community councils, which are supposed to give teachers, parents and community members a direct say in their schools’ operations. While the councils currently provide some input in the evaluation and hiring of principals, the bill would make their feedback account for half of the principal selection process.

“This is not just overnight,” Kim said, adding that teachers and parents have repeatedly called her with concerns about their local schools and frustrations with top leadership. “Those are the things that I’m trying to be responsive of.” 

Possible Disruptions

But opponents of the bill say there are key differences between Kim’s bill and Act 51. The principals’ union and DOE administrators said they were not meaningfully consulted before Kim introduced the bill, and it’s unclear if the proposal will achieve its goal of empowering schools with a lack of buy-in from principals. 

At Mauka Lani Elementary School in Makakilo, Principal Neil Battad said complex area superintendents serve as principals’ first point of contact during emergencies and manage issues that affect multiple schools, such as redistricting plans and enrollment projections affected by new housing developments.

Cutting these superintendent positions may require principals to take on more responsibilities than usual, he said, reducing their capacity to support their schools. 

The current version of the bill proposes replacing the 15 complex area superintendents with district and deputy district superintendents. While the bill doesn’t specify how many districts would replace the current complex area structure, in the early 2000s, DOE had seven districts managed by 14 superintendents.

If the bill returned the department to its original leadership structure, there would be few changes in the total number of top officials, but each superintendent would be in charge of more schools, Hayashi said. For example, the Leeward District superintendent could be in charge of more than 40 schools stretching from Kapolei to Waipahu to Waiʻanae, he said, even though these campuses have unique needs and serve distinct communities.  

The current leadership structure and reforms established under Act 51 has worked for Hawaiʻi schools, Hayashi said, pointing to the state’s improved ranking on national math and reading assessments over the past 20 years. While there is always room for improvement, he said, major leadership disruptions could impede schools’ progress. 

“There have been gains over time, and I fully expect those gains will continue under the system that we have,” Hayashi said. 

Following the strong opposition earlier this month, Kim said she’s open to revising the bill to place a cap on the total number of school superintendents, rather than eliminating the 15 complex area leaders completely. While she’s still not sure what the cap should be, Kim said, she doesn’t want the education department’s leadership ranks to continue to grow without explanation.

Last spring, the department created a new assistant superintendent position to oversee school meals, transportation and campus security. In 2022, the department added two deputy superintendents to its leadership ranks, despite strong public pushback and concerns about the lack of transparency in the hiring process. 

The bill is scheduled for decision making in the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. Already, the bill received more than 300 pages of testimony in advance of the hearing, with many principals writing in to oppose the measure.  

Support For Change

In Kalihi, community member and grandparent Lynette Kumalae said she feels a growing sense of frustration from her children and neighbors who send their kids to public schools across the state. Families don’t feel supported or seen by school administrators, she said, when long-standing problems like bullying in schools go unaddressed.

The bill’s proposal to give school community councils a greater say in the hiring of principals is a good start, she said. Currently, councils may have limited input on campuses’ academic or financial plans, and requiring them to play a larger role in the principal selection process ensures that schools are hiring leaders who will have strong relationships with families, said Kumalae, who serves on Kaʻewai Elementary School’s council. 

But some educational advocates say shifting more responsibility to school community councils isn’t the answer, although they support greater investments in community outreach and family support. 

Often, families are not aware of school community councils or how to participate, said Deborah Bond-Upson, president of Parents for Public Schools Hawaiʻi. Some schools have no webpages with current council information, she said, while others haven’t posted their meeting minutes for years. 

Families have legitimate frustrations with the school system and the challenges of communicating with administrators and teachers, Bond-Upson said. But a bill to rework the education department’s top leadership structure isn’t addressing key needs in areas like mental health or support for students with disabilities, she said. 

“It just seems like a real misuse of energy and funds,” she said. 

The principals’ union has also opposed the bill’s proposal to give school community councils a greater say in the hiring process, arguing the change would need to go through negotiations with the union. 

With strong opposition mounting against the bill, it seems unlikely the proposal will pass, said Colin Moore, a political scientist at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. But it could be a politically popular move for Kim to push for more community involvement in schools, he said, noting that the senator is up for re-election later this year. 

Even still, he said, it was unusual for Kim to rebuke principals on the Senate floor last week after they booed and cheered during the bill’s hearing. Principals are well-known community figures, he said, and publicly criticizing them sparked the ire of their union.

“What anyone is trying to accomplish with this is a little uncertain,” Moore said. 

Often, bills don’t pass on their first try, Kim said, but she hopes her proposal will spark more discussions and reflection from the DOE moving forward.

“This is sort of to light a fire under them, to get them to recognize there are issues, there are concerns,” she said. 

Parent Jessica Wright said she believes the department needs major reform to better support teachers and students. Before she pulled her son out of DOE schools in 2021, she said, she saw little outreach to families or opportunities to participate on the school community council. 

But the bill doesn’t seem to address parents’ main concerns with the public education system, said Wright, who currently homeschools her son. Rather than restructuring top leadership positions in the department, Wright said, she would like to see more investments in mental health resources in schools or staff positions that specialize in community outreach and support for families. 

“I feel like it’s just like anything that we do, we just put a band-aid on it,” Wright said. “We don’t get to the root of the problem.” 

This story was originally published by Civil Beat.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.