The state can't deny its reliance on substitute teachers. On any given day, approximately 1,000 substitute teachers are needed to fill in for regular teachers.

Given this growing need, the state should do everything possible to recruit and retain more qualified substitutes. Instead, it is still appealing a 2005 decision by Circuit Judge Karen Ahn, who ruled that the state owed substitute teachers back pay going back to 1996.

Now another class action suit has been filed against the state on behalf of roughly 4,000 substitute teachers who say the Department of Education has failed to comply with law, Act 263. The hearing for that case will be tomorrow.

Act 263 ties pay increases for substitutes to increases for Licensed Class II teachers. Class II teachers received a 4 percent increase on Aug. 1, but the DOE failed to give a similar wage increase to substitute teachers.

But that provision of Act 263 failed to make it into the Hawai'i Revised Statutes, despite being agreed to during the collective bargaining process.

Act 263 states "rate increases for substitute teachers should be based on rate increases for licensed Class II teachers as determined through collective bargaining."

The Legislature later amended the statute to set a "minimum hourly rate pay" for substitute teachers for the 2006 school year. It does not link the subs' pay increase to Class II teachers.

"Our position is that Act 263 explains when pay rates go beyond minimum, substitutes' pay go up as well," said Bruce Wakuzawa, an attorney representing the substitutes.

The disparity in pay, however, goes beyond semantics. There is a clear history of problems when it comes to the DOE and substitute teachers. And at a time when the state is suffering a chronic and worsening shortage of regular teachers in the classroom, it can't afford to drive away substitute teachers, who serve as safety nets in our schools.

DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen said Friday the department could not comment on the ongoing case.

Rather than spend any more time or money on appeals and fighting lawsuits, the DOE should find a way to resolve the ongoing disparity in an equitable manner.