Two weeks before the start of a new school year, the Department of Education is racing to hire hundreds of teachers to staff classrooms across the state.

Recruiters are working hard, but superintendent Pat Hamamoto said yesterday she expects some classrooms will have to rely on substitutes.

DOE officials would not give an exact count of how many teaching positions are still vacant, saying it's likely fewer than a year ago, but still a moving target, with numbers changing daily and hundreds of applications being processed.

"We're really cranking it out at this particular point," said Gerald Okamoto, assistant superintendent for the Office of Human Resources. "We are making offers all the way to the very end."

Recruiting specialist Bruce Shimomoto said it's likely the department will hire "hundreds and hundreds" of teachers before the month is out.

However, the Hawai'i State Teachers' Association worries that the picture is more troublesome than last year, with more retirements this year among teachers with 30 or more years of experience and the pressure of living costs working against luring teachers to Hawai'i.

"If you take a look at the price of gasoline and the cost of housing and the fact that so many of the hard-to-staff areas have no real housing inventory, I can't believe they're finding enough people," said Joan Husted, HSTA executive director.

Husted said she couldn't get answers to how many teachers are still needed to fill slots that traditionally open up every summer as teachers retire or leave.

"Shimomoto was very coy, saying, 'We don't have data yet' and I said, 'You must know how many people you're still looking for.' My suspicion is they're looking for a whole lot," Husted said.

Traditionally the state's 258 public schools need between 1,300 and 1,500 new teachers each year — a challenge because of the nationwide teacher shortage and the lower pay scale in Hawai'i, especially when adjusted for the cost of living. This past summer, there were an estimated 1,500 to 1,600 vacancies.

Last year there were still 400 vacancies three weeks before the school year began and a year earlier there were 357 vacancies as it got under way.

EMERGENCY HIRES

When there are vacancies, the state has the option of using emergency hires who generally have bachelor's degrees but aren't licensed teachers, or substitutes who may not even have bachelor's degrees. One problem with the latter is they don't offer stability to the classroom as they're often hired a day at a time.

But schools in some of the most remote or difficult-to-fill areas of O'ahu say they're doing well, in great part due to the influx of 55 Teach For America teachers. The group is a national organization much like a domestic Peace Corps dedicated to connecting teacher candidates with disadvantaged communities. Its first Hawai'i corps will debut in classrooms this year.

"Teach For America really helped us on the Wai'anae Coast primarily because it forced us to fill as many vacancies as early as we could so we knew where the vacancies were," Okamoto said.

At Nanakuli High and Intermediate, where eight of the 15 vacancies were filled by Teach For America personnel, vice principal Corrina Luna said the group offered a tremendous assist to the school.

"Just having people available for teaching positions and interviews, I think that really helped to fill the gap and the need we had at our school," Luna said. "Sometimes we have a hard time finding the math and science and English teachers, and this year most of our positions are filled and we're really happy about that."

REASONS FOR LEAVING

While DOE officials will not compare recruiting success this year to last year, they say strengths seem to have outweighed weaknesses.

Superintendent Hamamoto believes that this year's short summer helped recruiting by giving prospective hires early job offers. Officials say they began recruitment efforts earlier to match their timeline to the new unified calendar, which will have all regular public schools starting the year on July 27. In addition, she said, schools have been looking at ways to retain teachers.

"We worked closer with the alternative certification programs that we have on the island, knowing that's where we could get more of our recruits," Okamoto said. "And we started addressing retention issues, with a new teacher survey to find out the reasons why they're leaving."

Hamamoto said the reasons don't necessarily involve job dissatisfaction.

"A lot of people realize they're not teachers, or it's not what they thought it would be," she said. "Or it has to do with other jobs, or child-rearing needs or pregnancies, or husbands move."

At Kalaheo High in Kailua, principal James Schlosser has lost some of his teachers this year because they simply can't afford to stay.

"This year in my science department I had four Mainland teachers, and they went back because of the cost of living. They realized they could not purchase a home in Hawai'i," Schlosser said.

"I had a couple of people at my last faculty meeting cry because they feel they can't hack it. I think the time has come for some type of legislative action to try and encourage more teachers to come, and the retention of more teachers. These teachers have not left because they have not liked it here. Maybe there could be tax incentives for young teachers, possibly housing stipends, especially in remote areas."

MAINLAND TEACHERS

While officials can't say what the total hiring forecast is yet this year, Mainland recruiting was fairly successful, with 291 people getting job offers, Shimomoto said.

"Recruitment went very well, but we do still have the attrition we normally have," he said. "Generally if we have given job offers, a little over half actually come. Some will drop out because they've gotten jobs at home. Others might be doing the math and saying 'Hey, it's not coming out so good.' The number of people who actually come is about a 40 percent drop-out."

At Pohakea Elementary in 'Ewa Beach, principal Stephen Schatz said he's been able to fill all of his vacancies, including hiring three Teach for America corpsmen, while at Waipahu High, principal Pat Pedersen also has filled virtually all of her vacancies, four of them from that group as well.

"That gave us the opportunity to meet the people in person," Pedersen said. "In terms of teacher recruiting and hiring, it has been easier. Teach For America had a tremendous impact for me."

"To some extent we've had a little bit more turnover than we'd like recently," Schatz said, "and that's one of the things we're looking at as a school and trying to stop. We want folks to stay around for significant chunks of time."

500 NEW GRADUATES

Hawai'i colleges graduate about 500 new teachers every year, with the new graduates coming from the University of Hawai'i, Hawai'i Pacific University, Chaminade University of Honolulu and the University of Phoenix.

Traditionally about 80 percent of those new graduates stay and take jobs in Hawai'i.

Yesterday, 30-year-old New Jersey kindergarten teacher Karen Wagenhoffer was one of the many being interviewed by DOE recruiters.

"I applied a couple of weeks ago and sent all my information in," said Wagenhoffer, who is licensed in New Jersey. "Since we were out here for a vacation I called them and they set up an appointment for an interview. There are very friendly people out here. I would love to stay and live here."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.