There are still new teachers who show up in Hawaii’s public classrooms, brimming with enthusiasm, and each year a bunch of them come from Teach for America Hawaii.

One is Kyli Lyn Arford, a Konawaena High School alumna who will facing a cohort of 11th grade chemistry and biology students at Kealakehe High School.

Her outlook: “I not only want my kids to grow up where I did, but I also want to advocate for the public school system I came from.”

That’s excellent news for those Hawaii Island students, but the persistent problem — some would call it a crisis — is that there are too few teachers like Arford coming down the education pipeline and too many of them calling it quits.

This has produced a rate of vacancies that, critics say, leaves substitute teachers and others who may lack subject-area mastery at the helm of too many classrooms.

In some areas, it’s been a longstanding problem. Bill Prescott, who hailed from Oahu’s Leeward coast, moved his family back to his home town while he served a tour in Vietnam. Even then, he said, he noted the challenge of keeping a stable teaching force in the region’s public school campuses.

“I didn’t realize how bad the quality of education was on the Waianae Coast,” said Prescott, who formerly served on a community coalition seeking school improvement. “The problem has been going on for decades.”

Many on faculty there are newly credentialed teachers, either from isle colleges or brought in from the mainland, he added; once they’re tenured, they’ll either seek a transfer to another district, or they’ll move away.

“Whenever there’s an opening in town, all of our teachers down here apply,” he said. Then emergency hires or substitutes fill in the blanks.

Officials of both the state Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) acknowledge the ongoing issue. But where the union sees a persistent issue with dire consequences for education, the department maintains that it uses strategies to mitigate the effect on students.

One tool has been the DOE’s 10-year-old partnership with Teach for America (TFA). West side schools are among those on Oahu, most of them clustered in lower-income areas, that have similar problems keeping teachers.

Teach for America currently focuses on Oahu and Hawaii island as the districts that generally contend with the most vacancies, said David Miyashiro, spokesman for the organization.

The nonprofit, according to the national website, comprises a “national teacher corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach and to effect change in under-resourced urban and rural public schools.”

Miyashiro said TFA this year has about 120 teachers in Hawaii schools, including around 50 who are on their second year. Among the other first-year teachers is Cuyler Otsuka, who lives in Nanakuli and will staff a special education class at Waianae Elementary School. Local knowledge can boost the chances that students will remain, long term, he said.

“For a lot of teachers outside Hawaii, it’s a change,” he said. “It’s not Waikiki and Diamond Head.”

The difficulty is not only the culture shock, said Corey Rosenlee, HSTA president: It’s also a salary that has not kept up with the cost of living in Hawaii.

Rosenlee pointed to salary comparison figures, which show that Hawaii’s lag in pay becomes especially pronounced after the first few years.

“Right about this point is where you see this teacher turnover,” he said. “They come for a couple years, they find out they can’t survive; that’s when they start leaving.

“My daughter last year didn’t have a science teacher,” Rosenlee added. “She had a sub, for the semester.

“Teachers have told me there were kids on the Leeward coast, they were taking a Spanish class taught by a sub, and the sub didn’t know any Spanish,” he said. “They went an entire year without having Spanish. There was a math teacher who never took upper-level math so couldn’t teach it, so the kids were just basically going an entire year without math.”

Principals at schools do work to counter the effect of prolonged assignments of substitute teachers, said Suzanne Mulcahy, the DOE’s assistant superintendent for the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Support.

There is a robust selection process for substitutes, Mulcahy said, one that includes an interview by the school administration and an adult education course (see Page E5 for a brief description of the process).

And the substitute teacher is not left high and dry to fend for himself or herself, she said. The ones who are selected to cover more than a faculty member’s brief absence are selected on the basis of their evaluation by staff, Mulcahy said, as well as their background and effectiveness in the classroom and how well they work with the students.

“They will meet with department teachers to share lessons and understand the scope and sequence of things,” she said.

Michelle Payne-Arakaki, the principal at Pahoa Elementary School, provided an example.

“We have a list of substitutes that are frequently on campus,” she said. “Usually it’s a vice principal who evaluates them. We know who’s a good fit for the school and grade level before choosing.”

In an anticipated absence, the staff teacher leaves a month’s worth of lesson plans for continuity, so the substitute can maintain student routines, Payne-Arakaki said. They fill out a report on what they delivered to the students, and administrators note any shortfall on the teacher’s evaluation, she said.

A long-term substitute is included in what are called “professional learning communities” on campus, with support from other teachers in the grade level, she added.

Two years ago, when the volcanic eruption on Hawaii island routed some additional students to the Pahoa campus, the school was short of teachers and had long-term substitutes then, Payne-Arakaki said, but currently there are none.

Rosenlee remains concerned about the vacancy situation, which is exacerbated by the drop-off in teacher graduates who are homegrown and likely to remain.

During the first weeks of the academic year, the DOE and individual schools finalize their enrollment figures and begin filling vacancies as best they can.

But about one week into the new semester for the interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Rosenlee’s estimate was that there were 1,600 openings to fill.

“We’re going to fill 375 positions with teachers mainly from Hawaii,” he said. “That still leaves us with a 1,200-plus gap.

“They’re going to grab a couple hundred more teachers from the mainland, and then they’re out.

“Next step is getting emergency hires,” Rosenlee said. “These are ones who haven’t passed their license, haven’t yet finished college, whatever the reason.”

These will fill a few hundred positions, he said, and the rest is left to substitutes.

“Rural and poorer schools tend to have a higher turnover and a harder time of keeping teachers,” he said. “Which is a shame because it means that students that come from an impoverished backgrounds are also the ones most likely to not have a qualified teacher.”

Mulcahy acknowledged the challenges that Rosenlee pointed out. These include the need to find the resources for better salaries and better facilities, both factors that would enhance the attractiveness of a career in education.

Ultimately, it’s raising the status of educators in myriad ways that will bring more of the best and brightest into the profession, she said. Knowing the subject area is only the first part of the equation; conveying that knowledge to children takes a special talent.

She remembered early in her own career being questioned by colleagues about taking the teaching track.

“Wouldn’t you want the best of the best to come in, to translate that knowledge to children in creative ways? Wouldn’t you want that to happen?” she asked, rhetorically.

Mulcahy recalled a favorite T-shirt, emblazoned with the words, “Those who can, do; those who can do more, teach.”

“Being a teacher is not a less-than profession,” she said. “It’s a noble profession.”