Keith Hayashi stepped in to lead the Department of Education at a tumultuous time. Some campuses were still closed from the Covid-19 pandemic, families’ trust in the public education system had fallen and the previous superintendent, Christina Kishimoto, left the job after repeatedly clashing with the teachers’ union and principals.

Hayashi, who started as interim superintendent in 2021 and stepped into the permanent job in 2022, is nearing the end of his first term as schools chief. The Board of Education will vote on renewing his four-year contract with an 18% pay raise in a meeting Wednesday. 

Under the new contract, Hayashi’s salary could jump from $249,600 to $294,674. He would also qualify for an annual 5% to 8% raise based on performance evaluations, meaning his salary could grow to $400,900 by December 2029, according to a BOE memo. 

The proposed raise aims to make Hayashi’s salary nationally competitive, since superintendent pay has remained mostly stagnant since 2017, said Wesley Lo, who chairs the BOE Human Resources Committee. The annual raises aren’t guaranteed since they’re tied to performance, he said, and the board is working to set clear metrics for the superintendent’s yearly evaluation.

Even with the proposed pay raise, Hayashi’s salary would fall below the median income for school leaders nationwide.

“The more you delay those things,” Lo said, “the bigger the jump seems.”

Past Efforts To Raise Pay Garnered Pushback

The BOE, which is responsible for hiring and overseeing the superintendent, has praised Hayashi’s leadership and efforts to improve student learning since the pandemic, which began in March 2020. In September, the board gave Hayashi a satisfactory rating for his work in the 2024-25 academic year.

But past efforts to raise the salary of top school leaders have faced strong public pushback, with some educators and lawmakers arguing that funds would be better spent addressing the teacher shortage and other pressing issues. Last November, the teachers’ union unsuccessfully asked the board to delay raising Hayashi’s salary after the DOE failed to pay hundreds of teachers at the start of the school year.  

In written testimony submitted to the BOE ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association pointed to the growing disparities between the pay of top leaders and their employees nationwide but didn’t oppose the potential salary raise for Hayashi.

As the board reviews a raise for Hayashi, it also needs to consider boosts to teacher salaries to better retain educators, said Osa Tui Jr., president of the teachers’ union.

“Our members wholeheartedly agree that compensation is important in attracting, retaining, and motivating our educators who work so very hard day in and day out to make the superintendent shine,” Tui said in his testimony.

In addition to considering a $45,000 raise for Hayashi, the board will also vote on a proposal that could raise the salaries of most deputy, complex area and assistant superintendents by an average of 10%. The 24 superintendents, who work under Hayashi, manage state-level offices and oversee school complexes across the state. 

The superintendent raises are intended to create more equity among DOE leadership, Lo said. Some principals currently earn more than complex area superintendents, making it difficult to recruit people for top leadership positions in the DOE. 

A study published earlier this year also found that DOE superintendents make 20% less than the median pay for other school leaders in Hawaiʻi private schools and on the mainland. For example, the superintendent of Houston Independent School District, which has a similar student enrollment to the Hawaiʻi DOE, earns an annual salary of $462,000. 

“When we do a search again for a new superintendent, that’s who you’re competing against,” BOE Chair Roy Takumi said. “You’re competing against those school districts.” 

On the other hand, salaries for Hawaiʻi teachers are nationally competitive, according to a DOE study published last month. This year, Hawaiʻi teachers have an average salary of $75,860, and educators are supposed to see a 14.5% pay increase over the course of their current contract, which runs from 2023 to 2027. 

But teachers aren’t guaranteed an annual pay raise unless it’s negotiated in their contracts, meaning they’ve missed out on automatic salary increases during times of economic uncertainty. 

Rep. Julie Reyes Oda, a former teacher at Nānākuli High and Intermediate School, said the superintendent shouldn’t receive annual raises when the state won’t guarantee the same for teachers. Staff turnover has been one of the biggest challenges for schools in recent years, she said, and teacher salaries still don’t reflect all of the effort and overtime educators put into their jobs. 

“I think that this discussion on raises right now is a distraction,” she said. 

The Past Four Years

In his recent annual evaluation before the BOE, Hayashi emphasized the education department’s success in helping students recover from the pandemic. Over the past year, he said, schools have improved attendance rates, particularly among Pacific Islander students, and kids’ math and reading scores have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels. 

Leading up to the September meeting, several principals and education nonprofit leaders submitted testimony in support of Hayashi, highlighting his strong collaboration skills and dedication to student success.

But the department has also faced major challenges when it comes to school facilities and oversight in recent years, which Hayashi acknowledged in his review. In 2023, DOE proposed lapsing nearly half a billion dollars in construction funds, and a severe shortage of school bus drivers led the department to abruptly cancel transportation for thousands of students between 2022 and 2024. 

As a longtime principal, Hayashi has a strong understanding of youth development and classroom instruction, which has helped him prioritize learning loss and student mental health since the pandemic, said Rep. Amy Perruso, a former teacher at Mililani High School. But he’s struggled with facilities and operations, she said, especially when it comes to efficiently repairing campuses and improving the department’s purchase of local food for school meals. 

Even still, Perruso said she appreciates Hayashi’s willingness to improve and correct past mistakes, pointing to his recent request that lawmakers give DOE more control of its facilities funding so schools could spend the money more efficiently. 

“His weaknesses are clear, but he’s also improving in those areas,” Perruso said. “I think that’s all we can ask for, really.” 

Corey Rosenlee, a teacher at Campbell High School and the former president of the teachers’ union, said he would like DOE to focus more on filling vacancies in classrooms in the coming years. At the same time, he said, student attendance rates have yet to recover from the pandemic, and schools are relying too heavily on standardized tests to assess their students. 

While solving these problems shouldn’t fall on the superintendent alone, he said, he would like to see more coordination between the education department, the Legislature and the BOE.

“I feel like our big problems are still big problems,” he said. 

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