Seven “qualified content area” teachers from Samoa and their dependents arrived in American Samoa yesterday morning. The first group arrived around 8a.m. and the second group two hours later, according to Education Director Vaitinasa Dr. Salu Hunkin-Finau over the weekend.

“These are the teachers who weathered the long and arduous process of all government clearances to teach in ASDOE's high schools for the next two years,” she said, adding that a total of 25 qualified teachers from Samoa were carefully selected from over 100 applicants through a selection process aligned with the current needs of the secondary schools.

ASDOE secondary schools have been plagued with teachers teaching out of content, she explained.

She also says that the hiring of qualified Samoa teachers is ASDOE's initiative to place highly qualified teachers in the hard to fill areas of math, science and English. “The current ASDOE high school teachers teaching out of content will be undergoing University of Hawai’i certification and content area development programs,” she said.

Upon their arrival yesterday, the teachers and their families were transported to the Main DOE office for a welcome and briefing with Hunkin-Finau. An orientation training will be conducted today before teachers report to their respective schools tomorrow (Oct. 15).

Due to the high attrition rate of classroom teachers ASDOE faces annually, Hunkin-Finau hopes to recruit more qualified teachers from Samoa to fill the continuous shortage of teachers.

During a House Education Committee hearing early last week, Hunkin-Finau revealed that the department is moving ahead with the hiring of teachers from Samoa, with the first group to arrive this week. She didn’t say during the hearing how many teachers would be recruited from Samoa.

Last month, some lawmakers voiced concerns about the lack of teachers in several elementary and secondary schools, and they said this was something that Education Department should have addressed before the start of the school year.

Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga sounded the same concern at a meeting more than two weeks ago with DOE officials and educators at the Gov. Rex Lee Auditorium, where Lolo initiated a move to have returning college graduates who work in the government sign up as volunteer teachers to fill the vacant posts until replacements are recruited.

During the House hearing, Vaitinasa explained that between June and August — before the start of the school year 2014-2015 — some 51 teachers handed in their resignations or retired. That is an average of about 17 teachers a month leaving DOE she said.

“We can’t stop them from retiring — or from handing in their resignations for various reasons, such as moving off island,” Vaitinasa said, adding that this occurs throughout the school year, leaving DOE to fill vacancies in classrooms.  “And when this occurs during the school year, principals and counselors step in to temporarily fill the vacancy until a teacher is recruited.”

While the letters of resignation come in quickly, the process is slow when it comes to filling vacant positions, said Vaitinasa, who added that DOE must go through the required ASG hiring procedures under the Human Resources Department.

In terms of the secondary schools, at the start of the school year there were 27 vacant teaching positions, but that number has now dropped down to seven, she said and stressed again that there will still be teachers retiring and resigning, which makes this issue a challenge one for DOE to address.

Additionally, there are also teachers needed in elementary, ECE and special education.

“We’re still trying to hire as quickly as possible more teachers” she said and thanked the governor and DHR director Sonny Thompson for their support in expediting the hiring of teachers.

She is also thankful for the governor’s initiative which is placing returning graduates on a  list of volunteer teachers that started out with about 20 graduates. However, she said that only three volunteers are currently on the list. She suspects that some of the volunteers left because it's very difficult being a teacher, among other reasons.

Responding to committee questions, Vaitinasa said DOE does hire graduates with an AA degree due to the teacher shortage, while these individuals continue their education in the Cohorts program to obtain a Bachelor's degree.

She acknowledged that American Samoa Community College has been accredited for the bachelor' degree program, but graduates get their degree in elementary education, not for secondary, ECE or special education.

“We need to have a pool of highly qualified teachers” — with BAs or MAs who have passed all the necessary teaching requirements, in order to address the continuing teacher shortage in public schools, she said.

She also shared with the committee a proposal for the ASG Scholarship board to allocate funds for specific fields of study — such as accounting, and teaching. (Vaitinasa is a member of the Scholarship board).

Talia agreed and urged the board to look at scholarship fund money and focus these resources on the needs of American Samoa — such as teaching.

He also said that the public “perception” is that there are too many qualified people with higher degrees working in the DOE main office instead of taking up classroom teaching positions.

“Is this a true perception?” Talia asked and Vaitinasa replied “That’s not true.”

House members said they hope that there are more improvements to filling vacant positions for teachers as soon as possible, but Vaitinasa again stressed that there will still be a teacher shortage — because teachers are either retiring or resigning throughout the year.