Teaching in Hawaii

Teaching in Hawaii VS Utah

I have had so many people ask me how it is to teach in Hawaii, and I always say it's different. Well I want to take the time and explain how it is different. It definitely has it's pro's and con's; And since I've only ever taught public high school in Utah & Hawaii, I will compare the two.


Getting Hired

The first biggest difference between Utah & Hawaii is how you are hired.

In Utah, each district has a list of vacancies, and you can apply to any/all of the vacancies, and then you will get calls from the schools to interview. In Hawaii, you actually have to interview with Hawaii State DOE, and be accepted by them first. Then you will be put on a list where the schools will call you. You never see the actual vacancies until a school calls you to ask if you'd like to interview for a position. AND there's a catch. You can't say no to more than 5 schools, or you have to start the application process all over which will take about 90 days. okay ask me if that's crazy.... YEAH it's crazy. So basically you have to play this game called... take every interview you get & then don't accept any of them until you find the one you want.

Luckily I was able to make it to an in-person interview with the state DOE in LA, when Raymond & I were on vacation, because they wouldn't allow phone interviews. After I was accepted into the pool of applicants, schools started calling me. My 3rd interview was from a school that I had heard good things about, and they offered me the job over the phone, so I accepted. I hadn't even seen the school, but I was ecstatic to say the least. We were moving to Hawaii, & I had a job!

On the phone, the principal told me I would be teaching Geometry & Algebra. I was super excited because I had been wanting to teach a full course of  Geometry. In Utah I had been teaching integrated math, so Geometry & Algebra were mixed together. I was excited to just teach the Geometry course by itself.


Communication

Everything starts to fall into place, and we move to Hawaii about two weeks before school starts. I still hadn't filled out any paperwork, so I was getting nervous & called the school. They had the paperwork there for me & I just had to go pick it up. I knew I needed to do fingerprinting because you have to in every school district you work in, but the lady who gave me the paperwork at my school told me I didn't need to. (That was the first big miscommunication).

I later found out I needed to, and everything turned out fine. I didn't have an employee number and therefore couldn't log into the computers, or rosters until the first day of school, which was crazy hectic & stressful. There was a new grading system the entire state went to this year, which I still didn't have access to on the first few days. Teachers normally go back to school a few days before the students come back in order to prepare their classrooms etc. Because I didn't have a log-in ID, I couldn't log into view what I was even going to teach! (We used a state mandated curriculum, & had it online... didn't even have workbooks for the students yet). Let alone make seating charts or view my classes or prepare in anyway. It gave me so much anxiety to not know any of that.

Not to mention, found out that I was co-teaching two classes. Which meant I would have a lot of students who had IEP's (Individualized Education Plans). In other words they are the special ed students placed into a regular classroom, who need extra help. That's why there are two teachers. My co-teacher is licensed in Special Education. This is what they call inclusion. I had no idea that I was going to have TWO inclusion classes. When I finally got to meet some of the other math teachers, I asked about the classes I was teaching. They informed me that I was NOT teaching Geometry, which was quite disappointing, because I was so excited about it. And that I was given the math classes that nobody else wanted to teach... surprise surprise the new teacher gets the hardest load!... This is quite typical at any school you start at.

Looking back on it, I am really happy that I taught all Algebra classes, because it made it way easier to plan, not to mention my co-teacher SAVED me. I don't know how I would've been able to function without her. The lack of communication at the school is unreal. The math department didn't even communicate to the principal what the new math teachers were going to teach. It's no surprise that the other new math teacher they hired quit half-way through the year. Hopefully for the new incoming teachers, they'll have a more pleasant experience than I did, & the school can be more organized. We are hiring 3 new math teachers for next year!

In Utah it was a VERY different experience. I did all of the paper work months before I started working at the school. All of the new teachers hired had 3 meetings with current mentors throughout summer which prepared us on what to expect. They covered everything & answered all of our questions. I was ready to go for at least 10 days when school started because we had time to plan & get everything ready.

One of the best parts of teaching at SHHS in Utah was the communication with the principal. He would send out the Monday morning memo, via email, to all of the teachers covering things we needed to know for the week. Upcoming meetings/ events, and he'd even include inspiring messages every week. It was nice to have a personal relationship with the principal, who would come around to every classroom at least once a week to just pop in or say hello. Not to say anything bad about my principal that I currently have, she really is great, but she has never even come into my classroom. The vice-principals however, have a few times.


Policies & Procedures

One of the things I REALLY like about CHS in Hawaii is their policies & procedures they have set school wide. They have a NO CELL PHONE policy. Which is really the BIGGEST distractor in students' lives these days. If you see the cell phone in class, you take it away. I LOVE this rule. (Of course, every once in awhile I would have them use their cell phones in class for a particular activity.) Now you also have to realize that not every student will be compliant. There will be students who will refuse to give you their cell phone. When they do this you can follow up, contact parents and write them a referral to the principal/vice-principal as insubordination. Most students do not want to get a referral, and they will be compliant, however I wrote PLENTY of referrals this year, not just for the cell-phones but for any mischief they were causing.

In Utah we did not have a system like this. If a student was acting up, you could call their parents, ask another teacher for help with them... (I found out just making them sit in another class helped a lot.) But there was no system in place for the teachers/ students to be held responsible for their actions. I felt like I wasn't allowed to send anyone to the principal because I needed to try to deal with it in other ways first, which caused a lot of stress on my part. Being able to just say okay, I'm writing you a referral helped tremendously with behavior, and other problems I ran into. Not to mention in Hawaii we had a big security staff, that we could call if we were having troubles with any students and they would escort them to the counselors or administrators.

Another policy that I LOVE about teaching in Hawaii is that all of the teachers dress more casual. In Utah you would hardly ever see anyone wearing sandals, given it is cold most of the year. Whereas in Hawaii, lots of the teachers wear flip-flops or sandals. I am a sandal person and so this was SUPER nice, not having to be restricted to a certain type of shoe I could wear to work.


School/ Classroom Environment 

As you can imagine, living in a tropical climate, the school is built much differently than in a dry/colder climate. The schools here are built very open. All of the hallways are outdoor hallways, & inside the classrooms there are entire walls of shutters that just open up outside, which is super nice when there is a good breeze, HOWEVER, when there is not a breeze, or if your windows are on the wrong side of the room, (like my classroom), then your classroom gets REALLY hot with 30 bodies in there, given that only some of the classrooms have A/C. My hallway not being part of the club. Which I think is totally unfair. I mean, how do you expect 30 students to come to a super hot stuffy room to learn MATH (one of their core subjects) for EIGHTY minutes? Oh and yeah, now days you want to get the students up and moving, doing a fun activity, but when it's that hot, nobody wants to move!! So theres that. We do have fans, but the students literally fight over them, and given that I am going to be in the same classroom next year, (I asked to switch.. nope the new math teachers next year are gonna get better rooms than I have).. I am thinking of new ideas, or new ways to place the fans in my room to maximize the breeze.

Most places in Hawaii have a hard tile/wood floors. Which is nice because your carpet doesn't get all nasty, like mine did in Utah. (Also that was my fault for allowing any of the students to have drinks.) There were at least 3 big spills on my carpet last year, so I love that my classroom has a tiled floor. What I don't love is that it hardly ever gets cleaned! Where are my room cleaners? And don't even get me started on my trash.... Sometimes they don't take it out over the weekend, and there were RATS, yes it's happened twice, got into my trash and tore stuff up and left it all over the floor. Usually I try to take it out, if I notice it is getting pretty full.

In Utah my trash was taken out EVERY day. That's how it should be. Not to mention they even vacuumed my floors daily, and wiped down my desks. Cleaned my whiteboards every friday. Man they were the best!

The overall environment in Utah was much cleaner & the attitudes of the students were much nicer as well, and there was MUCH less cursing. I've never heard so many curse words in my life. I've heard more in one day here than I had in my entire year in Utah. Although given any teenage population, there will be plenty of sass. The principal in Utah made a huge difference in the school environment. He was always talking about changing the world, and positivity. We started out every day listing 3 things we were grateful for, which eventually led me to have a very positive relationship with many of my students. Not to say that I didn't have positive relationships with students here, it was just different. I tried to emulate that kind of positivity in my classroom here, which at times was very difficult, especially with the very different population I was teaching. Maybe next year will be different and I will see a new light among the students. This year I taught the "repeaters" & "sped" students. The ones that are at the bottom of the barrell, & sort of hate math, with exception to the one ninth grade class, which was exceptionally different. I am looking forward to seeing how different my experience is next year, when I am just teaching the normal classes, where everyone is in there for the first time. I am also going to be a student council advisor for the ninth grade, which I will be teaching. So I am quite excited about that, and very excited to work with some of the best youth at the school!


School Schedule/ Vacation days / Prep times / A-period

Another thing I love about Hawaii, that actually made this year LESS stressful (mostly), (yes can you believe with how much better Utah was, that I was still less stressed this year??) was that we were given WAY more prep time. We got 481 minutes a week of prep time. Although one of our preps was sometimes used for meetings, which could end up being 158 minutes a week. Which even if we did have meetings for those 158 minutes, I still had my other 323 minutes a week for my own prep. Which I used to prepare for my 4 Algebra 1 classes & 1 workshop.

In Utah we had 300 minutes of prep time per week. Which was NEVER enough. I stayed after school almost every day, preparing lessons, making copies, and grading quizzes/tests. I was also teaching a fuller load. Two Math-2 classes, three Math-3 classes, & one workshop. This year I taught all Algebra which ended up being way easier than teaching multiple courses, & had a lot less students, which was also very nice. Although the attendance rates for my classes have been a lot lower than in Utah.

Part of the reason we had more prep time is because there's such a weird schedule. On Mondays you see all of your classes for 45 minutes, and then Tues/Thurs you'd see periods 1, 3, 5 & 7 for 79 minutes, and Wed/Fri you'd see 2, 4, & 6 for 79 minutes. Which is REALLY rough for those afternoon classes. I think 79 minutes is just too long, ESPECIALLY when you're in a hot classroom. Although sometimes you just gotta make the best of what you're given.

In Utah we had A/B days. I really loved A/B schedule, so there were 5 classes on A-days & same with B-days. I really did prefer the 60 minute classes everyday. At SHHS, we also had a lot more school assemblies, although many students wouldn't attend. We don't have as many school assemblies here at CHS, but when we do, they are mandatory, you have to sit with your class & we take attendance.

Another PRO to our school schedule here in hawaii is something they call "a-period". It is basically an allotment of time for the students to go into any class at the end of school, to catch up on their work, make-up tests, or just for extra help. It is in the schedule every Tues, Wed, Thurs, & Friday. I loved having this extra time for my students.

We started school here in Hawaii a few weeks earlier than school starts in Utah. I don't mind starting earlier because there are more breaks throughout the year, and when you live in Hawaii, any break you have is basically a day to vacation! Not to mention, in Hawaii they are much more generous with vacation days. You can take up to a total of 18 sick days/ personal days combined. In Utah that number is much smaller. I think they only allowed 3 personal days for new teachers, and 5 sick days.


Curriculum

There are a lot of pros/cons to a mandated state curriculum. That is what we are doing in Hawaii. The entire state is using the same math curriculum. They create a pacing guide, workbooks & even lesson plans for us to follow. Which you think sounds quite nice. I bet you're thinking... WOW the teachers don't need to plan anything... FALSE! There are many flaws to that idea. In my experience teaching with the state curriculum is a challenge in itself. FIRST of all.... the pacing guide is crap. It doesn't match our class times. Their scripts for lesson plans are crap. If you're teaching in a perfect world for students who are magically so interested in math, MAYBE they'd work, but in reality most students don't come skipping into class wondering what math concept they are going to learn. Most of the time the students don't understand what we're learning or WHY we're learning it. So it is my job to help them make connections with their experiences in their lives & with their future to understand math in a more meaningful way, AND to make it fun. I always say, I am not a teacher, I am an ENTERTAINER. The workbook is.... pretty good actually. I just wish there were more practice problems. It was really nice for the students to each get a workbook that they could follow along in, and take notes in. It's just... 80 minutes of math in a hot classroom is really really rough sometimes. I think the first math activity of the year will be to make everybody fans ;)

My favorite part of teaching, is coming up with fun ways to learn! I thought of tons a new games to play, and with the help of the internet found many others. One of the things my students had to do this year was memorize the Quadratic Formula. Now you may remember this from high school! Well we had our students do a video project & make a story out of the formula, & so to hold ourselves accountable my co-teacher and I made a fun video as well. Watch our video here!!

I wished we had been more organized in Utah to have workbooks of some sort... but we were basically on year one of creating our own curriculum and all of our own worksheets in Utah, which was a LOT of work. But had I stayed at SHHS, it would've been really come year two, because I could've just used most of the same stuff, and been able to tweak lessons here and there ! Which is why using the state curriculum in Hawaii for the second year will be a lot better.


Salary

It is true that the teacher's GROSS salary in Hawaii is much higher than in Utah. My gross salary in Hawaii is $12,000 more than in Utah. BUT my deductions are higher. I've lost about 1/3 of my total pay to taxes, medicare, etc. In the end my salary here ends up being about the same as my salary in Utah. The only con is that our housing is 3 times as expensive ! 😩😩😩  I guess there's always a price to pay to live in paradise!


OVERALL CONCLUSION

Many factors contribute to a student's academic performance such as their family, socio-economic status, interests, & friends. BUT I once read that research suggests the BIGGEST impact on their education is their teacher.

"Research shows that effective teachers are the most important factor contributing to student achievement. Although curricula, reduced class size, district funding, family and community involvement all contribute to school improvement and student achievement, the most influential factor is the teacher."

So my experience teaching in Hawaii has been very different than my experience in Utah. It's been filled with unexpected turns, many long days, and a wonderful co-teacher. I wouldn't change any of it. What I have learned teaching at completely opposite schools is that despite all the differences, I can make a difference in my student's lives no matter where I am, or what the school is like. I sincerely love the students I teach, and had so many great memories with them.

I loved my time teaching in Utah, and dearly miss my co-workers, & administrators. Something that really got me through my first year teaching in Utah was my best teacher friend Becky! We were both new, and we were right next door to each other. A day didn't pass without us chatting. I couldn't have done it without her, and I miss her so much! I wish we could've stayed next door to each other forever!