As Governor Ben Cayetano and Hawai’i State Teachers Association president Karen Ginoza pleaded their case on the television, Andy Snow listened intently to both sides. Snow, a science teacher at Kaua’i High School, is one of the 13,000 public school
As Governor Ben Cayetano and Hawai’i State Teachers Association president Karen Ginoza pleaded their case on the television, Andy Snow listened intently to both sides.
Snow, a science teacher at Kaua’i High School, is one of the 13,000 public school teachers across the state who plan to strike if the state and union are unable to reach a contract accord by the April 5 strike date.
Responsible for guiding 158 students though at least one of his four different courses, Snow has taught at Kaua’i High for seven years. Yet he still finds himself struggling to pay the rent and other bills with his teacher’s salary, despite holding two master’s degrees.
Unlike most other jobs where the amount of time and seniority leads to increased pay, Snow said teachers across the state are confined to mostly static pay scales.
“Almost any other job, you get more pay for more experience,” he said. “I learn something new every day in the classroom, and I should be paid for that. I should be paid for becoming a better teacher. I should be rewarded for staying in the system.”
Snow said Cayetano’s insistence that there is not enough money to pay for higher teacher salaries seems clouded by his subsidizing the tourist industry and planning of a new state aquarium.
“He made it plain that he feels we can’t afford it,” he said. “Everything should be on the table, including long-standing pet projects that help a small number of people.”
Having taught at one school for seven years, Snow said he witnessed many teachers resort to taking on second jobs to supplement their inadequate income. Using the time needed for lesson plans and other preparation to ensure tomorrow’s dinner is not the way to guarantee high-quality and satisfied educators, he said.
“There is no way you can be a really good teacher and have two jobs,” he said.
Sub-standard pay also leads to reductions in the numbers, experience, background and training of Hawaii’s teachers, Snow said. And that, he said, is the crux of the HSTA’s argument.
“The bottom line from our union president is that the main thing we’re trying to do is attract and retain high-quality teachers in our system,” he said.
Snow said Cayetano’s comment that agreeing to the union’s request would be a breach of public trust is not only untrue, but also a sign of the governor’s short-sightedness.
“The breach of public trust is not thinking long-term,” he said. “Inadequate teacher pay means we’ll have an inadequate teacher pool, so ultimately — down the road — the state will end up paying in the long run.”
He said teachers with higher levels of education and experience – and various interests – will better serve Hawaii’s students in becoming the leaders of tomorrow’s diverse economy, rather than just the latest addition to the state’s tourism industry.
Cayetano is “looking at the narrow bottom line, but he’s not thinking about the long-term economic viability of the state,” he said. “And one of the most important ingredients is super-qualified teachers who stay. He’s saying we can’t afford it now, but we really can’t afford it later.”
Cayetano’s claim that he helped build and renovate many schools across the state is not enough, Snow said, if educators are not at a certain level of quality.
“A building doesn’t keep a school together,” he said. “A building’s pretty, but we’re not going to make the educational system second to none by having pretty buildings.”
Snow said teachers don’t want to strike because of the detrimental financial and personal effect it may have on themselves, students and the rest of the community. But the current situation for Hawai’i teachers is just not feasible, he said.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of greed,” he said. “We can’t afford to strike. But we also can’t afford to have a mediocre pay scale.”
So as Snow prepares for a weekend of moving his herd of science animals from his classroom to his home, he said he is also preparing for what could be his last few days of teaching for a while.
Although he can’t give assignments during a strike, Snow said he plans on encouraging students to spend some time during the strike doing some research of their own – all in the pursuit of learning.
“They have textbooks, they have a library they can go to,” he said. “Getting them to learn is the reason we’re doing this.”
