The state Department of Education is claiming success in cutting down public-school teacher job vacancies from last year’s 1,000-plus to 260, but the teachers union believes the DOE’s hiring 80 educators from the Philippines and heavily crediting a new online hiring system for much of the progress are misplaced.

Hawaii’s public schools, like schools around the nation, typically are short around 1,000 to 1,200 teachers each year, a problem exacerbated by lagging salaries and the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall the U.S. is short by about 300,000 teachers and support staff, according to the National Education Association union. Hawaii is under teacher-hiring pressure especially as the state works to open 465 new preschool classrooms by 2032 under the Ready Keiki initiative.

But the DOE in recent months has made some “bold moves” to improve its efforts to recruit and retain teachers, Sean Bacon, assistant superintendent for the DOE Office of Talent Management, said in a presentation during a Thursday meeting of the Human Resources Committee of the state Board of Education.

Among the DOE’s changes is a shift to a more “modernized hiring process,” Bacon said. Teachers until recently applied in a “pool-based recruitment” system for jobs without specific locations. Now a new online platform active since May at hawaiischooljobs.org details each position’s location and salary. The system emails past applicants when new positions are posted, Bacon said, and hiring documents are completed on the platform.

“What this new system is intended to do is to reduce the time to hire,” Bacon said. “It helps improve transparency. It eliminates a paper-­based process. … And it intends to improve the applicant and hiring manager journey. All in the end to really have candidates be better aligned to the position that they are applying for.”

Bacon said on July 28, 2022, the start of the previous school year, there were 1,004 teaching vacancies, but as of July 31 this year there were just 300 vacancies, Bacon said. After more teachers were hired this week, openings dropped yesterday to 260, he said.

The DOE also began recruiting internationally at few years ago, starting with smaller numbers, but for this school year signed 80 educators from the Philippines under cultural exchange J-1 visas, Bacon said.

“All of these candidates that are coming to us internationally are certified, experienced, multilingual, advanced degree holders, and they’re able to stay in the United States anywhere from three to five years,” he said.

Ten of the teachers from Philippines will work at Lanai High & Elementary School, DOE Communications Director Nanea Kalani said separately in a recent email. Lanai is “historically one of our hardest-to-staff locations,” but it started this year with a full teaching staff, Kalani said.

Other recruiting initiatives that the DOE is ramping up, officials said, include “homegrown hire events” in communities, college presentations, high school visits, a $2,000 relocation bonus, a $1,000 “refer a friend” incentive, and an improved program for induction and mentoring to help new teachers feel oriented in their jobs and more deeply understand the unique communities where they work.

However, Hawai‘i State Teachers Association President Osa Tui Jr. said in a statement on the union’s website that he believes the major drop in educator vacancies actually “is a direct result of pay hikes and other important improvements the HSTA has advocated for in recent years,” including raises in a new contract, relief from salary “compression” for veteran teachers, and differentials for hard-to-staff jobs.

Tui also said the union, which represents 13,700 educators across the islands, had been requesting a new online portal for teaching jobs for years, and that teachers already in jobs should have the same access to openings throughout the state listed on the website.

He also called the hiring of teachers from the Philippines less than ideal because they’ll stay only three to five years. “We want to do everything we can to get especially local folks to get into these teaching positions because they’ll have roots,” Tui said.