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On Thursday night, the state Board of Education (BOE) approved a proposal to slash the Department of Education (DOE)’s operating budget by $119.5 million in order to stave off COVID-19 related deficits.

These cuts come “on top of an already recurring $100.2 million general fund reduction” and will be followed by “additional reductions ranging anywhere from 10% to 30%” that are soon to be directed by Governor David Ige.

According to the president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, Corey Rosenlee, these cuts will have severe consequences: roughly 1,000 staff positions gone and cuts to Hawaiian Studies, Hawaiian Immersion, Art, Music, P.E. and library programs.

And if layoffs, panicked families and swelling class sizes aren’t scary enough, the DOE also warned that $30.7 million spent to support annual pay increases this year for special education teachers and Hawaiian language immersion teachers may not be sustainable next year.

Definitely bad news for the holidays.

Where did that extra $30.7 million first come from? Almost exactly a year ago, the BOE approved the funding — an extra $10,000 for special education teachers and $8,000 for Hawaiian language immersion teachers — to help fill badly needed positions.

In July, nearly four months into the COVID crisis, the BOE doubled down on its commitment and agreed to keep the salary boost intact. Rosenlee called the pay program a remarkable success resulting in “the lowest amount of vacancies we’ve had in a long time.” He now tells us that the future of the funding is unclear.

In tough economic times, education budgets are typically the first targets of austerity, forcing teachers and other low-paid public servants to take pay cuts in the name of belt-tightening, while school districts strip away enriching, vital classes like art, music and physical education in favor of cheaper alternatives and more standardized testing.

The 2009 Furlough Fridays debacle should have taught us a lesson about the deleterious effects of taking big, machete-style hacks to our public schools’ piggybanks. And from the 1994 Felix consent decree to the currently pending class-action lawsuit over student accommodations during the stay-at-home order, the shortcomings of Hawaii’s special education system have been  well-documented in recent years.

But these new cuts to Hawaiian Studies and Hawaiian Immersion would cause an entirely different kind of damage — not just to students in immersion schools, not just to kanaka maoli, but to all of us living here who care about the future of this archipelago.

For kamaaina haole like us, who are constantly explaining to friends and family on the continent that “just because we’re from Hawaii doesn’t make us Hawaiian,” this is a no-brainer.

As the saying goes, there is no Hawaii without Hawaiians. That is why Hawaiian is one of two official languages in the state Constitution (art. X, § 4) — the same Constitution that obligates the state to “promote the study of Hawaiian culture, history, and language” (art. XV, § 4).

If our public schools are not working toward a widespread and robust understanding of that culture, history and language, something is deeply wrong.

Moreover, the Board of Education seems to agree! BOE Policy E-105 requires the DOE to provide a comprehensive and holistic program to inspire and meet the needs, interests and abilities of all students.

BOE Policy 105-7 states that “appropriate support for and implementation of Hawaiian education will positively impact the educational outcomes of all students in preparation for college, career and community success.”

Even in the BOE , there is a  code of conduct in which the Board’s members pledge themselves to be “guided by the spirit of ALOHA.” The all-caps ALOHA doubles as an acrostic design based on five Hawaiian words:

• A, Akahai (kindness)
• L, Lokahi (unity)
• O, Oluolu (agreeableness)
• H, Haahaa (humility)
• A, Ahonui (patience)

The DOE budget definitely does not match the spirit of these words and makes the Board’s use of Olelo Hawaii look about as authentic as

Life in Hawaii today — our society, our customs, our challenges, our opportunities — was not created in a vacuum. From the original Pacific navigators to Nainoa Thompson and the Hokulea, from missionary suppression to the Hawaiian Renaissance, from Kealakekua Bay to Pearl Harbor to Kahoolawe to Mauna Kea, and from overthrow to annexation to apology to sovereignty, the story of the Hawaiian people is still being written. Like all great stories, it must be taught to the next generation.

We can’t cut our way to a healthy future or to a prosperous one. We must find a different way forward.