A Senate proposal to subsidize housing for teachers as an incentive to work at hard-to-staff public schools has cleared its first hurdle in the House.

“We’re trying to keep our teachers here … especially in hard-to-fill areas,” said Mitzie Higa, government relations specialist for the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

She testified Tuesday at the House Housing Committee, which passed Senate Bill 12, SD 1, HD 1, with no dissenting votes, and sent it to the Education Committee.

The proposal calls for the Department of Education to create a housing voucher program in “hard-to-fill” schools, but the dollar amount, originally pegged at up to $500 a month, was removed in the latest draft.

It also does not identify which schools are “hard-to-fill.” However, the department already offers a $3,000 bonus to licensed teachers at 25 hard-to-staff schools. Those campuses are on the Waianae Coast, Molokai, Lanai, the Kau area of Hawaii island and in Hana, Maui.

Rep. Scot Matayoshi, vice chairman of the Housing Committee, asked Higa whether it would make more sense to just give the teachers in those areas another $500 a month in pay, rather than creating a housing voucher program.

But Higa said that a pay increase would be subject to collective bargaining, while incentives can be adopted separately, such as the National Board Certification bonus. Housing is also something that the department had provided decades ago for teachers in rural areas, she said.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs testified that most hard-to-staff schools are in rural areas with high numbers of Native Hawaiian families, so the shortage of qualified teachers could hit Hawaiians especially hard.

It called the measure “a much needed tool to better meet the educational needs of Native Hawaiian students and their classmates.”

Higa testified that 18 out of 19 special-education teachers hired in the 2016-2017 school year in the Nanakuli-Waianae Complex Area did not have a special-education license.

“For our most vulnerable students, that’s really concerning,” she said. “So we are looking for ways to support those teachers.”

The Department of Education also backs the bill as a way to help recruit and retain teachers in hard-to-fill areas. The legislation would also apply to public charter schools.