What should schools do in the face of massive budget cuts? Not what they’re doing in Hawaii, that’s for sure. The Aloha State negotiated “furlough Fridays” into its latest collective bargaining agreement, giving 13,000 teachers seventeen unpaid vacation days during this school year. Those days, combined with state holidays, teacher collaboration days, and professional development days, mean that there are only three full five-day weeks during the entire school year. The provision has working parents scrambling to find other occupations for their children--and other child-care arrangements for themselves. A few PTA’s are discussing privatizing education on Friday, calculating the cost of paying teachers and electricity bills on those seventeen days. Debbie Schatz, co-president of the 'Aikahi Elementary School PTSA explains: "Either our schools will be privatized on Fridays or a private entity will end up educating our children on Fridays or we're all going to end up taking our kids to work with us." Honestly, it’s difficult to imagine whom Hawaii thought it was serving with these furloughs: It’s costly and inconvenient for parents and it takes precious learning time away from children. The resulting 8 percent pay cut for teachers would have been better made by making tough human resources decisions, like firing ineffective instructors or aligning furloughs with non-instructional days. (The furloughs are not on non-instructional days because union leaders decided it would be too much of a logistical headache for them to figure out.) Good luck to parents figuring out this mess, but let’s hope their possible success doesn’t make other states think this is a good idea. Meanwhile, Gadfly is going surfing on Fridays.
“Hawaii teachers union officials stick by Friday-furloughs decision,” by Loren Moreno, The Honolulu Advertiser, September 27, 2009
“Parents consider paying teachers,” by Dan Nakaso, The Honolulu Advertiser, October 1, 2009