With the Legislature set to reconvene next week, the Hawaii State Teachers Association is looking to drum up support to increase pay for public school teachers.

Corey Rosenlee, president of the 13,000-member union, said teachers aren’t advocating to be the highest paid in the nation, but are seeking parity with their peers in cities where the cost of living is similar to Hawaii.

Rosenlee shared with the Board of Education on Tuesday a salary study the union conducted comparing Hawaii’s salaries with those of teachers in 10 school districts on the East and West coasts, including San Francisco; Oakland, Calif.; New York; and Washington, D.C.

The HSTA’s analysis found Hawaii’s starting salary of $46,601 for beginning licensed teachers ranks eighth lowest among the 10 comparable districts, while the state’s highest salary of $85,488 for the most experienced teachers ranks ninth lowest — without adjusting for cost of living.

When the union took the average salaries for each of the districts, it found Hawaii’s starting salary is on average $4,000 below its counterparts; the average salary for midcareer teachers here is between $15,000 and $25,000 below that of comparable districts; and the salary for Hawaii teachers with the most experience is $10,000 to $15,000 below that of mainland peers.

Rosenlee contends isle teachers cannot afford a decent living on the current salaries, which he said is contributing to the state’s teacher shortage.

“We need advocates to say that it is not acceptable that Hawaii teachers are so underpaid,” Rosenlee told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “All these other districts show that they’re willing to invest in their teachers. Why should Hawaii be any different?”

He added, “The reality is we have this constant churn. We need to get more people to go into the profession, and we need to decrease the amount of people leaving the profession. And salaries are a very important factor in that.”

Although the Department of Education had 96 percent of teaching positions filled — some 12,600 positions — by the first day of school in the fall, there were 531 vacancies, including 126 unfilled special-education teaching positions. The DOE, which typically hires 1,100 to 1,200 new teachers annually, had to fill the gap with either instructors without credentials who are working toward a teaching degree, or with substitute teachers.

Several teachers attended Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting to ask board members for their support at the state Capitol.

David Negaard, an English teacher at Baldwin High School on Maui, said he and many of his colleagues work side jobs to make ends meet.

“I hate seeing passionate, eager teachers ground down by the cold economic equations of teaching in Hawaii,” he said. “I hate the example we set of professional work when our professional salary isn’t enough so we can make our students a higher priority.”

Terry Low, who has taught at Kauai High School for the past 23 years since being recruited from California, said he’s never recovered from the pay cuts teachers took during the economic recession and Furlough Fridays.

Low said he was able to purchase a home because of benefits he receives as a veteran but has had to refinance his home at least three times “in order to meet my financial obligations in terms of living in Hawaii.”

“I know many teachers with second jobs struggling to pay off student loans, struggling to find housing, and even teachers who have declared bankruptcy. Hawaii needs to step up and pay teachers a professional wage,” he said.

Rebecca Hadley-­Schlosser, a special-education teacher at Maili Elementary for the past 19 years, called the turnover rate at her school on the Waianae Coast “horrendous.” She said roughly half of the school’s teachers have been with the school for five or more years.

“This means that our students have teachers who are early-career educators who may leave the school and Hawaii due to a lack of resources being readily available because of the lack of funding, the costs to visit family, and low salaries,” Hadley-Schlosser said.

Rosenlee said the union is working on legislative proposals to increase overall funding for schools and help pay for higher salaries. He declined to share details Tuesday, saying the proposed legislation is still being tweaked.

Last year the union proposed raising the state’s general excise tax to create a dedicated funding stream for public schools. Rosenlee said the union will not be seeking a GET hike this year.