HONOLULU — A group of substitute teachers has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a state plan to reduce their pay this month. The class-action lawsuit was filed Friday in state Circuit Court on behalf of the state’s 9,000 substitute
HONOLULU — A group of substitute teachers has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a state plan to reduce their pay this month.
The class-action lawsuit was filed Friday in state Circuit Court on behalf of the state’s 9,000 substitute teachers.
John Hoff of Lawa‘i, who is a substitute teacher, said there are about 325 active substitute teachers on Kaua‘i.
Hoff started an organization he calls the Substitute Teachers Professional Alliance about two years ago. He said the organization is now a statewide one, and that there is a possibility of a strike by substitute teachers due to the pay cut and other issues.
“I’ve called every island,” Hoff said in an interview with The Garden Island. “We have over 90 percent of substitutes behind us (on islands that have been organized).
“Everyone is negotiating for us, but we don’t have a voice,” Hoff said of efforts within the state Department of Education to deal with how much to pay substitute teachers.
He said the number of substitute teachers on Kaua‘i is declaining, creating a shortage, as former substitute teachers leave teaching for other jobs due to the pay problems in part.
The Department of Education plans to reduce the daily pay for substitute teachers from $119.80 to $112.53 beginning Jan. 24, the same day a pay raise for full-time teachers goes into effect.
The pay cut is based on a recent memo of understanding drafted by the state Attorney General and the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which represents public school teachers but does not represent the substitutes.
The substitute teachers allege that the pay cut violates a 1996 law that sets pay schedules. They contend that if the law were being followed, they should be getting about $30 more per day.
Last year, the department and HSTA rewrote the salary schedule to use new terminology that moves substitute teachers lower on the salary scale at the rate paid to unlicensed instructors, said Paul Alston, an attorney representing the substitute teachers.
The law requires that substitutes be paid based on rates paid to licensed teachers and not unlicensed instructors, he said.
The attorney general’s office has argued that substitutes are earning the correct amount, the same pay as instructors with four years of college education or who hold a bachelor’s degree.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of substitute teachers Allan Kliternick, David Garner, Jo Jennifer Goldsmith and David Hudson. The same group of substitutes filed a similar lawsuit in 2002, claiming the state had not followed the pay schedule since the law was enacted in 1996. That suit sought $25 million in back pay from 1996 to the end of the 2003-2004 school year.
The Garden Island contributed to this report.
