The state has agreed to fund nearly $880,000 worth of settlements on behalf of the Department of Education, including several wrongful termination cases, a lawsuit alleging mistreatment of a special education student, and compensation for 300 educational assistants stemming from a payroll dispute.

During the legislative session, the Attorney General’s Office sought funding to settle three dozen claims against state departments, agencies and employees, including six lawsuits against the DOE. Gov. David Ige signed House Bill 896, which appropriates more than $4.5 million for all of the claims, into law last week.

The public school system — which employs nearly 25,000 people, the largest of any single state agency — had the most legal claims among state departments this year, followed by the departments of Public Safety and Transportation.

A deputy attorney general who testified in support of the funding measure said the office “has had a long-standing policy of advising agencies as to how to avoid claims such as those in this bill.”

One of the DOE cases the state agreed to settle was a 2011 negligence lawsuit David and Laurie Kahiapo filed on behalf of their adult son, Jeremiah, who was receiving special education services at Kailua High School.

In their lawsuit, the Kahiapos claim Jeremiah, who was 20 years old at the time and has multiple mental and physical disabilities, fainted from hypoglycemia and dehydration after he was “forced to run on a treadmill for 25 minutes at excessive speed, not for therapeutic reasons, but as punishment because of his behavior.”

Because the student had a history of severe tantrums, the exercises were part of a therapy designed and prescribed for him by occupational therapists under contract with the DOE, court documents show.

The lawsuit says that when Laurie Kahiapo picked up her son the day of the alleged incident, he “was mumbling in a dazed manner, his eyes were closed, his tongue was sticking out of his mouth stiffly and he was being held up by three school employees.” He had eaten only a tangerine that day.

The parents alleged their son suffered injuries requiring emergency medical care and that they suffered severe emotional and physical distress.

The parties agreed to a $30,000 settlement.

The Kahiapos subsequently moved their son to a specialized private school at the DOE’s expense, according to the lawsuit.

The state has also agreed to settle a wrongful termination case filed by Ross Nishi, a Hawaii island personnel regional officer, who was fired in 2008 for allegedly improperly accessing a criminal justice database for personal use.

Nishi disputed his termination through the DOE’s internal grievance process and had the decision overturned, but the DOE never received the decision, according to the Attorney General’s Office. A second hearings officer upheld the discharge, as did the Board of Education.

Nishi then appealed in 2010 to a circuit judge, who reversed the termination and ordered Nishi reinstated with back pay and benefits. The DOE appealed that decision, and in 2013 the Intermediate Court of Appeals vacated the lower court’s decision and sent it back to Circuit Court to remand the case back to the BOE.

The BOE ultimately ruled in Nishi’s favor last year and had him reinstated, but didn’t award any compensation. Nishi sued for back pay and other benefits.

The state agreed to settle the case for $325,000, less than the approximately $500,000 Nishi’s lawyer claims he’s owed.

The state also settled a wrongful termination case with Howard Fukuda, who was fired in 2011 for violating the DOE’s workplace violence policy.

The United Public Workers union, which represents blue-collar workers, filed a grievance on Fukuda’s behalf, challenging the discharge. An arbitrator in 2013 reversed the termination and reinstated Fukuda, who then sued the department, asserting he was wrongfully terminated.

The case was settled for $80,000.

The largest of the DOE settlements cost the state $382,000 to settle a 2013 claim by the Hawaii Government Employees Association, which represents educational assistants at public schools.

The union filed a socalled prohibited practice complaint with the Hawaii Labor Relations Board against the DOE for unilaterally imposing changes to the paycheck schedules of some 300 teaching assistants during the 2012-13 school year.

The affected teaching assistants worked at schools that implemented a longer school year as part of an “extended learning time” pilot program that year.

The educational assistants, who would normally receive twice-monthly paychecks spread over 12 months, received two paychecks on Aug. 5, 2012, and were told by the DOE they wouldn’t get a paycheck the following Aug. 5.

Under a memorandum of understanding, the teaching assistants worked an additional eight days for professional development as part of the pilot. Six of the days occurred before the start of the regular school year, and two days were after the end of the regular school year.

To remedy the payroll timing change, the Hawaii Labor Relations Board had ordered that the teaching assistants have their salaries spread out over 25 paychecks to prevent a “payroll gap.”

The board also ruled that the assistants should be compensated for the violation.

“The total amount that was taken from each or any of the 24 semimonthly paychecks to which the employees were entitled during the (school year) that enabled the affected EAs to receive a check on Aug. 5, 2013, shall be restored to those employees in a lump sum,” the labor board’s December 2014 ruling said.

A DOE spokeswoman declined to comment on any of the settlements.