While Hawaii’s public schools continue to strongly emphasize staying open for in-person instruction in the COVID-19 pandemic, only 40% of public school parents queried in a Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll agree with that approach.

In addition, most general respondents statewide had a low opinion of the state Department of Education’s performance during the pandemic. A combined 68% gave ratings of “fair” or “poor” to the department’s efforts to educate students while keeping them and school employees safe.

The Hawaii Poll was conducted Jan. 24-28 by telephone by Mason-Dixon Polling & Stra­t­egy of Washington, D.C., and overall included 800 registered Hawaii voters.

The DOE has emphasized in- person learning for its nearly 160,000 students across 257 public schools this school year — even through the surge of the delta variant of COVID-19 that clouded the fall start of this school year, and the rise of the omicron variant, which has caused widespread teacher and student absences starting in January.

Student assessments have shown significant learning loss and other problems since the start of the pandemic.

The poll asked, “As you may know, Hawaii’s public schools have struggled to educate students while keeping children and staff safe. How would you rate the Hawaii Department of Education’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Would you rate excellent, good, fair or poor?”

Only 3% of respondents rated the department’s response as “excellent,” and 21% said it was “good.”

Meanwhile, 33% chose “fair” and 35% selected “poor.” Eight percent were unsure. This portion of the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Interim state schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi said Monday in a Star-Advertiser interview that he thinks the public may be underestimating how vigorously his massive department — the 12th largest in the nation, according to federal data — has worked to keep students safe, and learning as consistently as possible.

“I really, truly believe the department has done our very best to navigate the ever-changing conditions of the pandemic. We’ve worked hard,” he said, adding later, “It hasn’t been easy. But we always have kept our students at the forefront, and at the heart, of everything we do.”

He pointed out that the state Health Department has confirmed that the schools’ safety strategies have kept coronavirus spread lower among students and staff than the general population.

But critics, including parent groups and the Hawaii State Teachers Association, have complained that Hayashi and his predecessor, Christina Kishimoto, have fallen short in their duty to proactively develop a more aggressive and transparent safety and staffing plan. The teachers union has filed multiple complaints and demands for impact bargaining over work conditions in the schools.

The poll results showed wide variation by political party. A combined 73% of Democrats rated the department’s pandemic performance as good or fair. Among Republicans, however, 78% said it was fair or poor. No Republicans said the DOE’s response was excellent.

Responses also varied dramatically by race and ethnicity, with 48% of respondents of Japanese descent giving the DOE ratings of excellent or good. Only 19% of white, 20% of Hawaiian and 16% of mixed/other respondents gave such positive marks.

Opinions also varied by whether respondents had a child in school. Among those without children in school, 33% rated the department’s response as fair, 32%, poor.

Among those who do have children in school, 33% said the DOE’s response was fair, and 46% said it was poor.

Poll results in Honolulu County closely mirrored the statewide trends. But in Kauai County, 70% rated the school system fair or poor; in Maui County it was 75%.

DOE criticized

The poll also highlighted a deep division in opinion among parents over how to move forward with learning in the pandemic.

Of the 243 respondents who have children in the public schools, the poll asked, “Which one of the following do you feel is the best option for Hawaii’s public schools while the pandemic continues?”

Over half of the respondents preferred some measure of virtual learning: 47% chose “Follow a blended model of in-person and online classes,” and 9% chose “Go back to online- only instruction until the threat is over.”

Meanwhile, 40% went with “Continue in-class instruction.” Four percent chose “None/Not Sure.”

This part of the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.4 percentage points because of the smaller pool of respondents.

Some parents have criticized the DOE for not making online learning a more widely available option.

When coronavirus cases were peaking in January, Cara Flores, a Kahului mother of three public school students, kept her children home for the first two weeks of the semester. For that, she got a truancy letter from one of her children’s schools, warning that “students who are chronically absent could be referred to Family Court.”

“Parents should have not felt so pressured to send their keiki into a situation if they felt it put their ohana at risk,” Flores said. “There should have been grace for these families, especially because the state was pushing a personal responsibility message. For some people, being personally responsible means not taking a risk of in-person activity during such a surge.”

Hayashi said the DOE will stay the course in emphasizing keeping the schools open, because it’s best for the students.

He said that as a father of two daughters himself, he understands the fear parents feel about their children’s safety, and thinks that may be causing them to wish for more distance learning.

But the superintendent said the disruption that online learning caused from the start of the pandemic and into the 2020-21 school year is largely to blame for the losses in learning and social-emotional development that are now showing up in student assessments and negative behaviors.

“It’s more dangerous for them to be away from school than to be in person,” Hayashi said.