To the dismay of thousands of public school parents, union officials stood by their decision last week to schedule 17 teacher furlough days on Fridays.

Hawaii State Teachers Association president Wil Okabe said that opting for furloughs on Fridays makes sense because of the substantial savings that will be gained and the need to be consistent with potential furlough days chosen by other state worker unions.

Teachers approved a new two-year contract last week that, starting Oct. 23, will close schools on 17 Fridays — equal to a 7.9 percent pay cut.

The union and state could have prevented the loss of instructional days if they had scheduled furloughs on holidays and teacher planning days.

Okabe said the union and the state Department of Education agreed to furloughs on Fridays because that was the day Gov. Linda Lingle initially planned to furlough state workers.

"She wanted uniform furloughs for all unions," Okabe said.

Okabe added that most of a school's administrative or support staff are members of two other unions — the Hawaii Government Employee Association or the United Public Workers. If the HSTA had chosen a furlough day other than Friday, it would have made for a logistical nightmare, Okabe said.

Marie Laderta, the state's chief negotiator, said the DOE did not have to schedule furloughs on instructional days.

It could have opted for teacher pay cuts or made use of holidays, she said.

"The governor in no way dictated which days should be furlough days," she said.

"Reaction to public school teachers ratifying the Hawaii State Teachers Association contract is understandably focused on the impact to our students. However, comments blaming Gov. Lingle for furloughing teachers are misdirected," Laderta wrote in a letter to The Advertiser.

"They could have laid off employees or implemented pay cuts and required teachers to work. They could have had teachers take furloughs on noninstructional days or on state holidays," she wrote.

Education officials noted that the governor approved the contract and had the most votes during the negotiations.

The DOE superintendent had one vote, the state Board of Education had two votes and the governor had three votes.

"Leadership means making the tough decisions and taking responsibility. The HSTA, BOE and DOE appreciate the governor's confidence in the negotiated settlement with HSTA and her three votes," said Kathryn Matayoshi, DOE deputy superintendent.

PLANNING DAYS KEPT

Garrett Toguchi, chairman of the state Board of Education, said that the use of teacher planning days and professional development days were discussed, but ultimately those at the bargaining table decided against using them as furloughs.

Toguchi said taking away the six noninstructional days from teachers would mean less time to plan curriculum and create strategies for boosting achievement.

"We demand a lot from our educators and put a lot of pressure on them to raise student achievement, raise test scores. ... Our educators need that time to get training, do planning and identify the needs of their students," Toguchi said.

Okabe said the HSTA had considered using noninstructional days as furlough days, but those days would not have resulted in the kinds of cost savings that the state Department of Education was looking for.

Of the $227 million in cuts to the public school system mandated by Lingle, the state Board of Education voted to only seek $117 million in furloughs and labor savings, while cutting the rest in programs and school-level funding.

"It had to be on a school day if it was going to save the state any money," Okabe said.

He estimated that it costs the state about $5 million a day to operate the school system, which includes the employee salaries, electricity, facilities, food service and bus service for students.

The DOE has yet to release the amount of cost savings achieved through the new HSTA contract.

Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said that furlough days are a better solution than pay cuts, because furloughs are considered to be a temporary measure.

"With a furlough, we do not change the base salary for a teacher. So a furlough is temporary and only for those days that someone does not work," she said.

Hamamoto said pay cuts, while they would have avoided the loss of instruction days, are permanent and "hard to come back from," because any pay increase would need to be negotiated.

She also noted that if the DOE gets an infusion of money, perhaps during the next legislative session, it's possible the days could be added back to the school calendar.

"That's really beyond my control, but if the Legislature finds the money, our first priority is to restore instructional days," she said.

SOME CRITICS

State Rep. Roy Takumi, chairman of the House Education Committee, said he would support a slight increase in the general excise tax if it were earmarked for education.

"I am going to remain optimistic that we ought to have a serious discussion about how we can reduce the impact this is going to have on the students as it stands today," Takumi said.

Russell Imanaka, of East O'ahu, is a father with three children in public school and said he would support an increase in the general excise tax to save instruction days in public schools.

"No one wants to pay more taxes, but we're in a crisis here and everybody has to pitch in and do their share. To have the state workers take the brunt of the responsibility is not fair," Imanaka said.

While many parents are worried about how to care for their children on furlough Fridays, Imanaka said his oldest daughter, who is a sophomore at Kaiser High School, will likely be staying home with her siblings and even some relatives.

Debbie Schatz, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Aikahi Elementary, said she's worried what the loss of instruction days will mean for her children's learning.

Schatz also said she is worried about the loss in pay for teachers, and she feels that "teachers will be wrongly held accountable" for any decrease in student achievement.

She and other PTSA members are organizing a petition that will be submitted to the DOE and he governor.

"We want to ask the governor, the state Legislature, to restore the funding for those 17 instruction days," Schatz said.