Teachers overwhelmingly voted down a proposed six-year contract Thursday that would have tied wage increases to performance starting in July 2013.

"The message is clear," said Hawaii State Teachers Association President Wil Okabe. "They don’t want this contract."

Never before has HSTA’s membership failed to ratify a contract proposal supported by the union’s executive board, as this one was.

About 67 percent of teachers voted against the proposed deal.

It is a major blow to the state, which had hoped the contract’s acceptance — and ending a months-long labor dispute — would help convince federal authorities it could make good on big education reform pledges. Labor troubles have been blamed in part on putting at risk Hawaii’s $75 million federal Race to the Top grant.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, spokeswoman for Gov. Neil Abercrombie, said Thursday night that the state’s next step will be to determine "how we’re going to move forward from this."

She could not immediately say what the vote would mean as far as the grant is concerned.

The Obama administration has threatened to take back the money if progress isn’t made on grant initiatives, which include pledges to institute performance-based compensation and revised teacher evaluations tied to student academic growth.

"We need to regroup," Dela Cruz said. "We will go back to our table and think of immediate steps on moving forward."

The labor dispute has raised big questions in the national education community about Hawaii’s ability to follow through on promised education reforms.

Okabe told reporters Thursday night, after announcing the results of the vote, that he would meet with teachers in the coming two weeks to come up with the union’s next steps.

He said the options HSTA has considered include calling a strike vote, continuing a legal challenge to the "last, best and final" contract offer the state unilaterally implemented July 1, or living with the imposed contract offer until it expires in July 2013.

About 9,000 of HSTA’s 12,500 members voted Thursday.

Okabe declined to speculate why teachers rejected the contract, but many union members have voiced opposition to the agreement’s unanswered questions surrounding a teacher evaluation system yet to be developed.

Under the agreement, teachers would have continued to see 5 percent pay cuts through June 30, 2013, before moving to a new salary schedule that recognizes their years of service with the state Department of Education. The department would also move to a revised teacher evaluation system that takes student academic growth into account. Teachers rated "effective" or "highly effective" would have been eligible for 1 percent step raises annually.

Linda Oswalt, a special-education teacher at Kalihi Elementary, said she voted against the contract because the evaluations won’t be "equitable."

"It needs to be fair," she said.

Nora Oyama-Haugen, a fourth-grade teacher at Kauluwela Elementary, said she could not vote in favor of the deal because there were not enough specifics released on the evaluations and how they’d be tied to pay.

"Unfortunately, when you vote for a contract, it’s all or nothing," she said.

Several teachers who voted for the contract proposal said though they did not like all the elements, they wanted the labor dispute to end.

"I’d rather have a contract than not have a contract," said Evelyn Say, a special-education teacher at Kalakaua Middle School.

John Takeuchi, an English as a second language teacher at Kalakaua, said he supported the contract because he wanted some stability after months of uncertainty.

But Takeuchi added, after casting his ballot at Farrington High School, there are a number of questions about the teacher evaluations, "and I think they need to be answered."

Before the results came in, there was much trepidation in education circles about whether teachers would approve the deal and what would happen if they didn’t.

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said before the voting Thursday that if teachers failed to ratify the contract, it would be detrimental to the state’s bid to convince federal reviewers Hawaii can make good on its ambitious grant pledges.

"It’s going to be a grave concern for everyone if this (dispute) is prolonged even further," she said. "A ‘no’ vote would definitely push us even farther back" in meeting grant goals.

Hawaii was named in August 2010 as one of nine states and the District of Columbia in a second round to win grants, and many national onlookers have been skeptical about the state’s ability to fulfill its goals, especially given the continuing labor dispute.

Under Race to the Top, a signature education initiative under the Obama administration, the state said it would turn around low-performing schools, boost student achievement and increase teacher effectiveness.

A host of delays, including reaching collective bargaining agreements on key reform issues such as new teacher evaluations, spurred the U.S. Department of Education last month to deem Hawaii’s grant at "high risk" and warn the money would be lost if progress wasn’t made. Hawaii is the only Race state to be reprimanded for lack of progress.

Hawaii News Now video: Strike an option after teachers reject proposed contract