Hawaii students content with more school days, aware of larger problems

HAWAII ISLAND—A law was enacted on Tuesday, June 15 requiring the Hawaii public school year to maintain a minimum 180 school days. Hawaii was the only state in the country that had less than that number a year ago. The new law will be in effect for the 2011-2012 school year, and beginning 2013 all schools must have a minimum of 1,080 instructional hours per school year.

Youth News for The Hawaii Independent asked 30 students from Hawaii Island for their opinion about the new law—47 percent supported the additional school days, 20 percent were against it, and 33 percent did not care or did not know what to say about it.

One student said she didn’t think the additional school days made a difference because the problem lies in the instruction itself.

“I don’t care. We learned enough,” said junior Kayla Quinories-Ah Sing. “We had 15 valedictorians. Almost all seniors graduated, and the underclassmen [are] doing better than just good. We don’t need any extra hours. What else is there to learn? The teachers run out of things half way through the class and that’s why kids ditch half of the period.”

Other students said they should not have been put in the situation of having less school time in the first place.

William Ebeling, a sophomore from Waiakea High School said: “I think that the new law wouldn’t have even come up if somebody could have come up with a different solution for our budget problems. I’m guessing that Hawaii schools were already open 180 days per year and about 1000 hours of class, so the new bill wouldnt have even come up if there weren’t furlough Fridays, which were caused by our bad solution to the budget.”

Ebeling’s comments echoed a statement from parent Melanie Bailey, who told the Hawaii-Tribune Herald, “It took this crisis for us to say, ‘enough is enough.’”

Many students who supported the restoration of school days were just happy to be going back to school and did not express strong opinions on what the loss and gain of instruction time meant for them.

“Now there’s more time to enjoy senior year,” Waiakea High School junior Cameron Anderson said.

“I just can’t wait for next year,” junior Tyler Kubojiri added.

Hawaii Island students appear content and willing to go back to school this fall regardless of the changes to instruction time.

There are 178 instructional days in the coming 2010-2011 school year.