It’s been a hard two years for the state office responsible for school facilities and operations. 

In 2023 alone, the office failed to use $650,000 in federal funds for school meals, canceled bus services for 14 campuses and proposed giving up nearly half a billion in unused school construction money. This school year, the office suspended bus routes for nearly 2,900 students and fell dramatically short of reaching local sustainability goals for school meals.

Now the Department of Education is proposing a solution: add a new leader to its ranks and divvy up responsibilities.

The department currently has a single assistant superintendent managing an office that oversees the safety, transportation, meals programs and facilities of more than 250 campuses across the state. The proposal would shift responsibility for school meals, transportation and campus security to a newly created assistant superintendent position.   

“The aim is to ensure our organizational structure aligns with our key priorities around high-quality student learning for all, an effective workforce, and efficient systems of support,” Superintendent Keith Hayashi wrote in a memo to the Board of Education this month.

The proposal will come before a board committee on Thursday. If the committee approves the change, it would need the approval of the full board before going into effect in July. 

Some lawmakers have previously said the department needs more people overseeing its facilities and operations branch, pointing to long-standing challenges with deteriorating school buildings, limited student transportation and families’ concerns about emergency preparedness following the Lahaina wildfires.

But the department’s past efforts to expand its leadership team have drawn strong pushback from some teachers and community members, who argue that the department should provide more classroom resources to students and educators instead of growing its top officials.

Under the new proposal, department leadership would grow to three deputies and eight assistant superintendents — nearly twice as many top leaders as it had in 2012.

Deputy superintendents earned between $165,000 and $195,000 in 2024, while the range for assistant superintendents was $160,000 to $190,000.

‘Too Much For Any One Person’

The push to reorganize the management of school facilities and operations followed the education department’s controversial proposal to surrender nearly half a billion in funds the state had earmarked for school construction in 2023.

The assistant superintendent responsible for that lapse had too many responsibilities, some lawmakers argued, and the office of facilities needed to fully dedicate itself to completing school maintenance and construction projects. 

One bill from the 2024 session would have created two separate offices in the department — one dedicated to facilities management and another overseeing school meals and transportation. The bill died in the House, but department leaders supported the proposal and said dividing responsibilities in the office would allow the department to handle school construction more efficiently.

Corey Rosenlee, a teacher at Campbell and former president of the teachers union, said he supports having one assistant superintendent solely dedicated to facilities management and another focused on school operations.

“Trying to do both of those jobs has always been too much for any one person,” he said. 

The proposal to add another assistant superintendent initially came from the governor’s office, which included funding for the position in the executive budget it introduced in December. But the department is welcoming the additional position, said education board member Wes Lo, who also thinks the proposal is a step in the right direction.  

Adding a leadership position alone isn’t enough to solve bus driver shortages or unused construction funds, Lo said. Still, the restructuring will allow the department to hire leaders with more specific expertise.

But the department faced strong pushback the last time it tried to expand its leadership team and added two deputy superintendent positions in 2022, one dedicated to strategy and administration and another to overseeing school operations.

Some educators, including Rosenlee, criticized the lack of transparency around the department’s decision to create two high-ranking leadership positions, while others said the new superintendents were unnecessary additions to DOE’s bureaucracy. 

The latest proposal comes as the department considers closing small schools after seeing a 13% decline in student enrollment over the past 20 years.

Improving School Meals And Construction

Compared to similarly sized mainland districts, Hawaiʻi’s school bureaucracy is still relatively small, even with the addition of another assistant superintendent, said state Rep. Amy Perruso. But she said expanding the department’s leadership team won’t address the root of the problems that have plagued Hawaiʻi ​​schools for years. 

If the department wants to improve in areas such as student transportation and school meals, Perruso said it should focus on supporting its existing staff and assessing how it approaches long-standing problems.

For example, department staff need more training in how to purchase local ingredients for school lunches if the department wants to improve school meals, she said. In 2024, just 5% of ingredients in school meals came from local producers, despite a state mandate to source 30% of ingredients locally by the end of the decade. 

While allowing one assistant superintendent to solely focus on facilities is a good start, Rosenlee said, the department also needs to earn the trust of lawmakers, who have questioned its ability to handle school construction. One way to do that, he said, is to focus on hiring and retaining project managers to ensure funds are going toward their intended projects.

“We really have to get a better handle on how we fund and improve our schools,” Rosenlee said. 

If the board approves the reorganization, the department faces the task of hiring not only a new assistant superintendent but also filling the position of deputy superintendent of operations, which became vacant after Dean Uchida died last month.

Both the deputy and assistant superintendent positions overseeing school facilities have faced turnover in recent years, with the deputy superintendent position going through three leaders since it was created in 2022.

Perruso said it can be difficult to fill these positions with qualified people, especially when potential employees understand how bad existing problems are. 

“We’ve gotten ourselves into a fix,” Perruso said, “where we’re making it harder for people to come in and help.”

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.