I was reading “Jungle Book” to my 2-year-old son. I sang “Bare Necessities,” the iconic children’s song in the Disney film that tells children all you really need in life to be happy is the bare necessities. It hurts to know my child won’t receive the bare necessities in our public schools.

In the book “Hawaii Pono,” it states Hawaii has suffered from meager funding, too few teachers and dilapidated buildings since 1911. The problem is our state Constitution did not fund public education with property taxes like every other district.

The state Legislature must finally address the funding crisis. The main problem on the mainland is a good education is often based on living in a wealthy district. Wealthy districts have more funding from property taxes. The poor districts suffer.

Here in Hawaii, every public school is equally underfunded. We have the only school district in the country that has zero property tax dollars funding our public schools. My son and your keiki deserve the bare necessities of adequately funded public schools.

The Legislature must finally address the teacher shortage. Teachers in Hawaii are paid the lowest salaries compared to other districts that have the same cost of living.

The shortage is so profound, one can graduate high school and be hired the following year by the state Department of Education as an emergency hire. As we have seen with the success of the special-education teacher shortage bonus, if you pay comparable salaries, you will fill the positions.

Legislators on the campaign trail are quick to say they support education, but never submit a legislative bill to fund it adequately. The problem is the governor can’t bargain competitive salaries with money that isn’t in the budget. The Legislature creates the overall revenue, and has the power to create more. But it has never seriously considered a dedicated funding tax source to adequately fund public education. My son and your keiki deserve the bare necessities that include a certified teacher in every classroom.

I am also desperate for the Legislature to address dilapidated buildings. Most schools don’t have air conditioning, and recently, it was reported that lead was found in the drinking water at numerous public schools.

Most recently, the interim schools superintendent backtracked policy, stating that some schools won’t be able to keep students 3 feet apart. My son and your keiki deserve the bare necessities of going to public schools that have intact, functionally safe school structures that can comply to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards during a pandemic.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association has done everything short of striking to solve these problems. The bill that had the most testimony ever submitted was on taxing secondary homeowners to increase public education funding. The largest protest at the state Capitol was for more funding for public schools.

The pandemic is just exposing how poorly funded our school system has been. Now our schools could be spreading disease. If funded adequately, our public schools can be a part of the pandemic solution instead of the problem.

I applaud state Reps. Jeanne Kapela and Amy Perruso as the only lawmakers writing bills with the intent of solving these century-old problems. I ask the leadership to follow their lead and look to fund the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Parents can rest at ease if our keiki just had the bare necessities of life.

Justin Hughey is a third-grade special education teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary on Maui and HSTA head faculty representative.