DRUG TESTS IN QUESTION

The Clause In The New Teachers' Contract Could Affect Hiring, HSTA's
Director Says

A top union official is worried that Hawaii could have trouble hiring
teachers under a new contract mandating random and
reasonable-suspicion drug testing.

"I think you are going to have a lot of very angry teachers," Joan
Husted, executive director of the Hawaii State Teachers Association,
said yesterday. "We believe it will have a chilling effect on
recruiting."

Island teachers will face drug testing starting in the 2008-09 school
year under a new contract that gives them 4 percent raises in each of
the next two school years.

The deal will bring the pay of an entry-level teacher with a
bachelor's degree to $43,157, up from $39,901, and increase the top
teacher salary to $79,170 from $73,197. It also awards most teachers
one step up in the pay scale in the second semester, giving them an
additional 3 percent hike.

The American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers union, ranks
Hawaii 15th in the nation among average teacher pay. But critics say
teachers here spend more money on everything from food to gas.

Hawaii needs to hire about 3,400 teachers in the next two years,
Husted said, noting that the state would be joining only a handful of
other school districts that test teachers for drugs.

"I didn't find too many teachers out there who were really thrilled
with this whole idea," she said.

Although he objects to drug tests, Randall Okimoto, a physical
education teacher at Farrington High School, voted for the contract
because of the extra money.

He said he is concerned about how tests will be done, whether teachers
taking medication will be protected from "false positive" results, and
how much the tests could cost. The state could spend about $91,000
each year if the Department of Education tested between 15 percent and
20 percent of its workers, which is the norm for companies testing
employees, according to Diagnostic Laboratory Services Inc.

"I feel like we could have used the money elsewhere," Okimoto
said.

Wallace Higa, a Roosevelt High School math teacher, voted against the
contract because he felt it unfairly singled out teachers. But he has
since changed his mind and now believes teachers should be held to a
higher standard.

"Today was a pleasant surprise," he said on the phone yesterday. "I'm
glad it passed."

The DOE, which already tests bus drivers, some physical therapists and
auto mechanics instructors, will talk with the union to come up with a
system, said spokesman Greg Knudsen. The Board of Education also will
be involved, said member Denise Matsumoto, chairwoman of the board's
committee on collective bargaining.

The contract says "principals will not select teachers for random drug
testing, nor will they or the DOE administer or read the results of
the testing." Instead, an independent, certified laboratory would be
hired to do the testing, it said.

States with school districts that test teachers for drugs include
Kentucky and Tennessee, according to attorney Follace Fields II, who
in 2004 represented a Kentucky elementary school teacher challenging
the Knott County schools' random drug-testing policy.

In a lawsuit in federal court, Fields argued the testing violated
Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and allowed
schools to look at personal medical records protected under the
Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit blocked the testing for some
months, but a judge ultimately ruled in favor of the school, saying it
was OK to test teachers to ensure a safe environment for children,
Fields said.

In Hawaii the issue of drug testing in schools has been highlighted by
six drug-related arrests of DOE employees in the past eight months.
Legislators even introduced a bill, now dead, that would have expanded
drug testing to all public school employees who work close to children
if there was reasonable suspicion they were intoxicated.

Legislators have said the state will be able to fund the teacher
contract, which would cost $119,380,888.

Star-Bulletin reporter Robert Shikina contributed to this story.