Hawaii State Teachers Association President Wil Okabe has secured a second three-year term, fighting off a challenge from a member of his negotiations committee.
Okabe received 52 percent of the vote, while challenger Paul Daugherty received 48 percent, according to results provided Tuesday by Daugherty.
In a statement released Tuesday night, Okabe said he was "humbled by the vote of confidence the teachers have given me."
He added, "These are difficult times. We must remain united in the pursuit of what is best for our profession and the children we teach."
HSTA’s board of directors certified the results of the election Tuesday, after conducting a count over the weekend.
Okabe’s second term begins July 8.
Turnout in the election was small: About 2,700 public school teachers, or roughly 22 percent of HSTA’s membership, cast ballots online or through the mail, Daugherty said.
By comparison, 3,700 teachers voted in 2006, re-electing HSTA’s then-President Roger Takabayashi.
(Turnout results for 2009, when Okabe was first elected, were not immediately available.)
Daugherty, a math teacher at Konawaena High School, said he was disappointed with the low turnout, especially given the significant changes facing teachers over the next three years.
"My feeling is if more teachers had voted, I think the outcome would be a more confident reflection of the real desire of teachers," Daugherty said. "It certainly isn’t a mandate."
Okabe will head the union at a time of immense change for teachers.
During his second term, teachers will make the transition to a performance management system and see longer school days, tougher student learning and graduation standards, and the rollout of a new rubric to determine whether schools are making adequate progress.
In the shorter term the teachers union also must grapple with a bitter labor dispute.
Later this month teachers will be asked to take a second vote on a contract proposal they overwhelmingly rejected in January.
Okabe has asked teachers to reconsider the offer, though the governor says the rejected proposal has "no legal standing" and must be renegotiated.
Teachers continue to work under a "last, best and final" contract imposed in July.
In his statement Tuesday, Okabe thanked those who voted for him and said he would work "as hard as I can to do as much as I can for every member of our association."
He also appeared to make clear some of his priorities for the next three years. He said, "We cannot have high-quality schools without adequate funding, small class sizes and the involvement of parents and communities to transform schools that need help and to provide the supports and resources that students, schools and teachers need to be successful."
