Schools seek to restore lost days

WAILUKU - Board of Education Member Mary Cochran of Maui said she will vote to approve schools' requests to restore classroom time lost in Furlough Fridays.

The board is expected to take action Thursday in Honolulu on 95 school applications, including six from Maui, asking to convert teacher training days into instructional days. These exemptions would reduce the 17 Furlough Fridays per year as agreed upon this school year in a two-year contract ratified by the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Schools are seeking exemptions from waiver or planning days in order to add anywhere between one and six days back to their school calendar. Public schools have already implemented two of the 17 Furlough Fridays planned for the year.

Maui schools filing for exemptions include Kula Elementary, Makawao Elementary, Princess Nahienaena Elementary in Lahaina, Paia Elementary, Pomaikai Elementary in Kahului and Pukalani Elementary.

Cochran said Tuesday "it would be nice" if all schools turned waiver days into instructional days to forego Furlough Fridays, but she said she would not try to influence a decision that has to come from each campus.

"You've got to trust the schools, whatever reason they have, they must make the decision. . . . Whether we like the decision or not, it's their decision," she said.

Individual schools can restore as many as six instructional days by opting to teach students on what would have been teacher planning days.

State Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto has extended the deadline for schools to submit exemptions from their waiver or planning days to Nov. 13. The Board of Education has placed on its Thursday agenda approval for the first 95 applications.

At Princess Nahienaena Elementary in Lahaina, the "greater majority" of the staff supported applying for the exemption and giving two waiver days back in lieu of Furlough Fridays, according to Principal Kaipo Miller.

"As much as we need the time for ourselves . . . we also recognize that students need some days back at school," Miller said about his school's application.

He said his staff discussed at length the need for teachers to use their training days and the need for students to be with their teachers.

With his school undergoing restructuring because of an inability to meet the benchmarks of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, staff decided it was best to provide more classroom time to students.

The teachers' contract agreement to allow 17 furlough days this school year and about 24 days next year reduced a 180-day calendar year to less than 165 days, making it one of the lowest in the country.

Critics of the contract have complained that both teachers and state officials should not have addressed the state's budgetary crisis by affecting the quality of public education.

HSTA Vice President Karolyn Mossman, a special education teacher at Kalama Intermediate in Makawao, said that teachers have been unfairly criticized for not wanting to give up their planning days or professional development activities to make up for lost time in Furlough Fridays.

Miller said he agreed with the argument that teachers need time outside of class to plan and learn how to better address student needs. "A good teacher will make a good student," he said.

Miller said he understands some schools' decision not to apply for an exemption from Furlough Fridays, and had his staff not already used four waiver days at the beginning of the school year, he might not have supported Princess Nahienaena's exemption application.

"Schools focus on the well-being and what's best for students," Miller said. "It isn't always necessarily more time in the classroom," he added.

Pomaikai Elementary Principal Rene Yamafuji said her school is also willing to "give back" two of its waiver days. Students at Pomaikai are dismissed at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesdays, an hour earlier than most public schools on that day so that teachers can use the one hour per week for professional learning opportunities.

So far, the exemptions to Furlough Fridays are the only options schools have to restore more classroom time lost in the teachers contract.

Community protests have involved calling on state lawmakers to hold a special session and find funding to restore instructional days. But no action has been taken thus far.

* Claudine San Nicolas can be reached at claudine@mauinews.com.

* This article includes a correction from the original published on Tuesday, November 4, 2009.