The long-awaited settlement check former Maui substitute teacher David Garner had been anticipating for more than a decade arrived by mail last week.

Garner, who worked as a substitute for 17 years, was the lead plaintiff in a 2002 class-action lawsuit that argued the state Department of Education failed to calculate substitute teachers’ wages correctly and didn’t come through on pay raises for years.

"It feels great," Garner said from his home in Kula. "The best part is knowing that 10,000 other substitutes got a check, too. That’s the best part about it."

A state judge in November gave final approval of a $14 million settlement for back-pay claims for approximately 10,000 substitute teachers.

The judge in late February put the Honolulu law firm that filed the lawsuit — Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing — in charge of disbursing the funds. It hired an independent payroll company to cut the checks.

"All the checks went out Friday (March 7). There should be a lot of happy substitutes out there," said Garner’s Maui attorney, Eric Ferrer, a lawyer with Alston Hunt.

Attorneys have said the payouts range from a few hundred dollars to nearly $20,000.

Garner would not disclose his settlement amount, but said he plans use a quarter of it to take a summer trip to Alaska with his wife for their 12th anniversary. The rest will go to a college fund for his sons.

Patricia Smith, another plaintiff, got about $5,000 after taxes.

"I’m really pleased," said Smith, who worked as a substitute on Maui for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2009. "It’s been kind of frustrating. … We never thought it would take this long."

She’s also owed back pay in a separate pending class-action suit for part-time substitutes.

Smith said she plans to use her settlement to buy a new roof for her Makawao home and travel.

The 2002 complaint argued the Department of Education violated a 1996 law pegging pay for substitutes to rates for Class II teachers — full-time instructors who have a bachelor’s degree but no advanced training.

From 1996 to 2005, for example, pay for substitutes, who are not members of a collective bargaining unit, increased 11 percent, compared with 40 percent for Class II teachers, who are unionized.

The suit claimed substitutes were illegally underpaid from 1996, but the courts ruled they could receive back pay only for the period from November 2000 to June 2005 because of the statute of limitations.

A state judge in 2005 issued a series of rulings mostly siding with the teachers.

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s rulings in 2009.

The state appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, which in 2010 sent the case back to Circuit Court for the state and teachers to determine how much was owed. Calculating that total prolonged the case.

"It’s been a long battle trying to get justice for these folks," Ferrer said.

The $14 million settlement covers claims for daily wages. Still pending are unresolved claims seeking hourly back pay (for substitutes who weren’t paid per diem wages) as well as interest payments on both daily and hourly amounts due. The state is appealing those claims.

"We’ll continue the fight. The fight goes on," Ferrer said. "I don’t think it’ll take another 12 years, though."