In a significant way, Hawaii is taking action to provide affordable rental units for teachers and other public school employees. The state Legislature has approved more than $200 million to build or refurbish affordable rentals for this workforce, and it’s absolutely the right move.
Hawaii’s public schools have long faced high hurdles to placing teachers in rural, remote and otherwise underserved areas, but there is currently no teacher housing on Oahu or Kauai. The Department of Education (DOE) has oversight of teacher housing — but until this year, has not been funded adequately to pay beginning teachers a living wage, much less house them. The few pockets of rural housing that do exist are generally aging and subpar, but nonetheless in demand, and teachers have typically been restricted to living in them for three or five years.
This year, the state started down a different path, and the advance in Hawaii’s treatment of teachers is worthy of celebration. This commitment to teachers, recognizing the essential value of their work, has been a long time coming.
Greenlighting the school employees’ housing program follows the state’s commitment, ratified recently by teachers, to establish a groundbreaking new pay scale for public school teachers. It’s a big, but necessary, bump: Salaries will rise across the board by approximately 14.5%, while entry-level teachers’ pay will increase from $38,521 to $50,325.
The higher wages and availability of teacher housing will allow beginning teachers, in particular, to address student debt and save for purchase of their own home. And if that’s possible, these teachers are far more likely to choose Hawaii schools, and to remain in the profession.
As one more step toward meeting the state’s overall demand for affordable housing, as well as a vehicle for providing preschool classrooms, providing school housing is a win on many levels.
Senate Bill 941 allots $170 million to the DOE’s construction arm, the School Facilities Authority (SFA) to build school housing at Nanakuli, Waipahu and Mililani high schools.
Further, $45 million for teacher housing near public schools in South Maui has been set aside in the state budget. It’s envisioned that the Maui housing, as with Oahu school housing, will include space for the state’s expansion of its pre-kindergarten program.
The School Facilities Authority will be charged with building the school workforce housing — as well as with planning and building 200 preschool classrooms — based on a survey by the SFA and the Hawaii State Teachers Association’s 12,000 members, assessing demand for apartments of various sizes.
SFA Executive Director Chad Keone Farias also recognizes that Hawaii’s current policy of limiting teachers to a short period in school housing is inadequate — an insight that’s welcome. In Hawaii, he notes, it would take more than eight years to save enough for a down payment on a $1 million house at a teacher’s starting wage of $50,000 a year. Where school housing has been provided, the model is to provide assistance for six to eight years.
The housing move is properly connected to Hawaii’s action to make preschool available for all of the state’s 3- and 4-year-olds, and to build out the infrastructure to do so. Credit is due here to Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, who advocated for this approach as a legislator before her election.
This reassessment of teachers’ value and commitment to the future well-being of Hawaii’s children, by the Legislature and administration, is necessary to support a secure future for all Hawaii families by providing the opportunities inherent in a quality education. It’s an encouraging start, worthy of support — and must be followed through on without fail.
