Fewer Teachers Fired Than Ed Department First Said
Editor’s Note: This article is written based on updated data we received from the Hawaii Department of Education that nullifies two earlier articles we wrote about disciplinary action taken against teachers.
Only six teachers in the entire Hawaii Department of Education have been fired for misconduct in the last two years. That’s six out of about 12,000 teachers, about one-twentieth of 1 percent. And it’s four fewer than the department originally reported in March.
The department also suspended 35 teachers for misconduct over the same period — one fewer than originally reported.
Civil Beat requested in November 2010 a list of all teachers fired or suspended for misconduct during the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. We asked because we knew that teacher performance and accountability are central to most education reform discussions, and both would play a key role in negotiations with the teachers union this year.
In March 2011, the Department of Education complied with our open records request and supplied a list of the teachers who had been suspended in the department over the previous two years. Out of respect for the sensitive nature of the information, we published the list of teachers’ names only in a .jpg file format so they would not be picked up by Internet search engines, in the event that a later ruling cleared them from the accusation of “misconduct.”
We’re glad we did. This Wednesday — three months later — the department voluntarily sent us a revised list that indicates four of the terminations and one of the suspensions listed in the earlier document were later overturned.
The accompanying letter explained that some of the information in the original list should not have been released.
“After careful re-examination of the teacher termination/suspension data list provided by the Department of Education to Civil Beat, on or about March 23, 2011, it has come to our attention that the data should not have been released due to the fact that it is premature for public distribution,” the letter states.
The letter then cites a statute that allows public agencies to release disciplinary actions relating to employees only after the grievance process has been concluded.
New Data
Civil Beat’s analysis of the new data found that over the past two years the district disciplined teachers for misconduct in 41 of its 257 schools, or 16 percent. Five were fired on Oahu and one on Maui. Teachers were disciplined on all the islands, with 31 of the cases on Oahu, two on Maui, three on Kauai and five on the Big Island.
Of the 41 total cases, 19 were at elementary schools, eight at middle or intermediate schools, seven at high schools and seven at schools with multiple levels.
Three schools had more than one case of discipline. At Farrington High School, three teachers were suspended. And Kaahumanu Elementary School and Kahuku High and Intermediate School both suspended two teachers.
