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Excellence in Education

The appointed Hawaii State Board of Education (BOE) and the State Superintendent of Education, appointed by the BOE, are committed to achieving excellence in Hawaii’s public schools.

The Department of Education (DOE) has adopted standards-based reform and the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards, establishing high expectations of academic and professional performance and accountability at all levels in our statewide public school system. Professional educators are the cornerstone of our mission to prepare Hawaii’s youngsters for the 21st Century.

Teaching in Hawaii means personal involvement in making school improvements through dedicated, creative collaboration at all levels of the school system. Schools are viewed as partnerships involving students, teachers, parents, administration, business, and the community.

Most of Hawaii’s schools embrace the concept of School Community Councils (SCC), which involves shared decisionmaking, encourages parental participation, provides administrative flexibility, and empowers school communities.

Education is everybody’s business. Hawaii is the only state with a single, unified school system. The DOE operates 255 regular schools and 3 special schools. Student enrollment exceeds 182,000

Employment Opportunities

The Department of Education employs almost 13,000 teachers, librarians and counselors. The renewed emphasis on excellence in education has contributed to an increase in teachers’ salaries, reduced class size, improved curricula, and expanded educational resources.

Geographically, job opportunities occur on all islands—Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kauai. However, the greatest demand for new teachers occurs on the neighbor islands and in the more rural areas of Oahu, away from the major population center of Honolulu.

Qualification Requirements

The Hawaii Teacher Standards Board requires candidates to meet licensure requirements. They are:

1. Completing a State-approved teacher education program from an accredited institution, and
2. Passing appropriate PRAXIS tests at the State-validated levels. The website for the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board is http://htsb.org

The Department of Education requires completion of a structured interview with an authorized professional staff interviewer. Teachers are eligible for tenure after completing four consecutive semesters of probation. A teacher must possess a teaching license before starting probation. Sometimes a teacher is permitted to begin employment without fully meeting standards. In these cases, employment is temporary to a maximum of three school years and these teachers do not have an opportunity to earn tenure.

Performance Expectations

The Hawaii Public School System offers a wide variety of teaching opportunities for the most qualified and talented teachers. These are teachers who are caring, competent, effective, and committed to obtaining the best results for our students.

To become and to remain a part of our educational experience, teachers must be dedicated to the profession and to the students. They must show result-producing attitudes and abilities; they must perceive learners as individuals and must empathize with them. Educators must lead by example and empower students to become literate, caring, effectively functioning, and constructive members of society.

The Department of Education is looking for informed, vibrant, and committed teachers who can make things happen for our learners. We seek those who can invigorate the learning process so as to make a difference to each pupil.

Hawaii is a special place with students representing a variety of multi-ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, the professional staff must be sensitive to the enriching contributions that island students can make to the total teaching-learning environment.

Salary and Compensation

The collective bargaining contract establishes the annual salary rates for new teachers. Such information is published annually to reflect the most current salaries in the document “Teachers’ Salary Schedule.”

Up to six years of non-DOE teaching experience is accepted for salary placement. Experience must be officially verified before being credited and must have been in a recognized K-12 public or private school. Certain active military experience, up to four years, may also be used in combination with acceptable teaching experience for salary credit, allowing an individual to enter at a higher step. A combination of teaching and military experience may not exceed six years.

Application Procedure

If you meet the requirements for teaching and have a strong desire to nurture and develop students to become contributing members of an educated society, the Department encourages you to apply for teaching or specialist positions in Hawaii’s public schools. School librarians and school counselors are specialist positions. To apply for employment, obtain a complete application from the Teacher Recruitment Section as indicated below:

By phone

• From the island of Oahu: 586-3420
• From the island of Hawaii: 974-4000 x63420
• From the island of Maui: 984-2400 x63420
• From the island of Kauai: . 274-3141 x63420
• From the island of Molokai & Lanai: 1-800-468-4644 x63420
• From the Continental U.S. including Alaska: 1-800-305-5104

By mail:

• State of Hawaii,
  Department of Education
  Teacher Recruitment Section
  680 Iwilei Road, Suite 490,
  Honolulu HI 96817

Department’s website:

• http://doe.k12.hi.us, go to “Jobs” link

The packet contains the Application for Professional Employment for Teachers, School Librarians, and School Counselors. Instructions for completing the form are also included.

Once the Office of Human Resources receives the application and all documents, arrangements will be made for a personal interview with an authorized Department representative.

If you qualify and successfully complete the application process, your name enters the Department’s teacher hiring pool. The Personnel Regional Office refers a list of eligible applicants to each vacancy for employment consideration and selection. The school principal and/ or designated representative(s) will interview and consider referred candidates and make a final selection for the vacancy. This process permits selection of the best qualified candidate for each teaching assignment.

Qualified applicants from the teacher applicant pool will be referred by matching the requirements of the vacancy with each candidate’s comparative strengths based on the Department’s assessments of application information, including academic preparation, teaching experience, personal interview results, college transcripts, geographic and grade level placement preferences, and other sources of information. Depending on the hiring demands for your teaching specialty, you may be referred to many school interviews before being selected for employment from the teacher applicant pool.

Employee Benefits

The State of Hawaii and Department of Education offers many employee benefits for eligible DOE employees, which include the following:

• Retirement benefits through the Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System (ERS). Employees hired on or after July 1, 2006, for any period exceeding (3) months and serving at least one-half time equivalent, become members of the Hybrid plan. A mandatory pretax contribution equal to 6% of an employee’s pay is required. For additional information on ERS benefits, please contact the ERS at (808) 586-1735 or visit their website at www4.hawaii.gov/ers.
  
  
• Health Benefits. Eligible employees may enroll in benefit plans offered by the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund (EUTF). Plans for medical/chiropractic, supplemental medical/drug/chiropractic, prescription drug, dental, vision, requires co-payments by the Employer and the employee. Information about the plans and rates are available on the EUTF website at www.eutf.hawaii.gov. You may reach EUTF at 586-7390 (Oahu) or 1-800-295-0089 (Neighbor Islands) for more information.
  
  
• Premium Conversion Plan (PCP). This state plan allows most health benefits plan participants to increase their take home pay by having the Employer deduct the cost of their health premiums from their pay before taxes.
  
  
• Tax Deferral Programs. Eligible employees may participate in the DOE’s Tax Sheltered Annuity Program and the State’s Deferred Compensation Plan (Island Savings Plan). These provide for pre-tax contributions to supplement regular retirement benefits. Employees may contact local insurance agencies for additional information regarding the Tax Sheltered Annuity Program and ING at 1-888-712-5642 for information on the Island Savings Plan.
  
  
• Flexible Spending Accounts. Island Flex flexible spending accounts allows the payment of eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax money. For more information, please contact Comprehensive Financial Planning, Inc. at 596-7006 (Oahu) or 1-877-550-5552 (Neighbor Islands).
  
  
• Workers’ Compensation Benefits. Benefits are available for employees who suffer work-related injury or illness. For additional information, please also contact the Workers’ Compensation Unit, Office of Human Resources (OHR) at (808) 587-4080.
  
  
• Temporary Disability Insurance Benefits. Benefits are available to replace a portion of lost wages up to a maximum of 26 weeks if you suffer a non-work related injury or illness and meet the eligibility requirements. For more information, Please contact the EBC/TDI unit, Office of Human Resources at (808) 586-4020.

Equal Opportunity

The Department of Education does not discriminate in its educational policies, programs, and activities on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, and disability in accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991. The Department of Education does not discriminate in its employment policies, programs, and activities on the basis of sexual orientation, arrest and court record, and National Guard participation, as well as on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, and disability, in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991, Equal Pay Act of 1963, and Chapter 378, Part I, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Other Sources of Information

For more information about working and living in Hawaii, contact the Chamber of Commerce for the island on which you plan to reside as well as the Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

• The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii (Oahu)
  1132 Bishop Street, Suite 402
  Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 •
  Phone: (808) 545-4300
  http://cochawaii.com
  
  
• Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce
  106 Kamehameha Avenue
  Hilo, Hawaii 96720
  Phone: (808) 935-7178
  www.globalindex.com
  
  
• Kauai Island Chamber of Commerce
  2970 Kele Street, Suite 112
  Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii 96766
  Phone: (808) 245-7363
  www.kauaichamber.org
  
  
• Maui Island Chamber of Commerce
  313 Ano Street
  Kahului, Maui, Hawaii 96732
  Phone: (808) 871-7711
  www.mauichamber.com
  
  
• Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau
  2270 Kalakaua Avenue, Suite 801
  Honolulu, Hawaii 96815
  Phone: (808) 923-1811
  www.hvcb.org
  

© Hawaii State Department of Education, P.O. Box 2360, Honolulu, HI 96804; Physical address: 1390 Miller St, Honolulu, HI 96813; phone: 808-586-3230; fax: 808-586-3234. All rights reserved. For problems/questions concerning this web site, please email the webmaster. Links to other web sites should not be considered an endorsement. DOE is not responsible for the content of external web sites.

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