New Hawaii teachers’ union leader Osa Tui Jr. has a different approach to job

Corey Rosenlee, the outgoing president of the teachers’ union, has been an outspoken, assertive and activist leader, eager to take a stand and do battle on behalf of his members.

His successor, Osa Tui Jr., is equally passionate about the Hawaii State Teachers Association, but he is cut from a different cloth. Tui is known for his personal warmth, reflective nature and commitment to collaborative decision-making.

“He’s sort of like Mr. Aloha, very inclusive, always reading people,” said Diane Mokuau, librarian at Molokai High School and a member of the union’s negotiations committee. “He’s so personable and so down to earth. Everybody loves Osa.”

“He’s like a Renaissance man,” she added. “He can write really well. He’s really good with numbers. He’s really, really smart and so well rounded.”

This summer will be turnover time for public education in Hawaii, with Waipahu High School Principal Keith Hayashi becoming interim superintendent on Aug. 1, replacing Christina Kishimoto. Tui, the teachers’ union vice president, ran unopposed for president and takes office July 5, with Rosenlee having to step down after two terms.

“Corey and I do have different styles, that’s for sure,” Tui said with a chuckle. “Corey is a social studies teacher. He loves data, he loves numbers. I’m a math teacher, but I love to tell the story from the heart and try to give a broader perspective of things and how it affects people.”

“I will step into that role to be more the face of HSTA and bring some aloha to the position, hopefully,” Tui said in an interview. “I want to be more of a collaborator, bring everyone to the table and have the discussion. Because right now, for example, we had bills that we partnered with the Legislature but we left the governor out or we left the superintendent out, and things really don’t work if you leave out one or two interested parties.”

Take House Bill 613, for example. At the tail end of the session, without public input, legislators altered the bill to prescribe how the Department of Education should spend millions of dollars in federal coronavirus funds, including $2,200 bonuses for each classroom teacher.

The legislation raised the ire of the Board of Education and superintendent, whose role it is to determine use of federal funds in consultation with stakeholders. The bill also angered unions representing other school employees such as custodians, cafeteria workers and administrators, who worked through the pandemic and got no such bonuses.

And it violated rules governing use of federal funds as well as collective bargaining, according to Gov. David Ige. The bill is now on the governor’s veto list.

Tui says he hopes to avoid such “pilikia” (trouble) as he moves into the top job for the union, which represents 13,500 educators statewide.

Logan Okita, the union’s secretary-treasurer who will become the vice president, says the president’s role is a major shift for Tui.

“Osa definitely doesn’t like being in the spotlight,” she said. “He tends to take the more supporting role. It’s going to be fun to see him have to be the voice and be the face. He’ll step up into it and he’ll be really good at it, but it’s not in his comfort zone to be speaking loudly.”

“HE DEFINITELY develops relationships and makes people feel heard so that we don’t instantly go to confrontation, but he’ll go there when we need him to,” she added. “He’s a little more strategic. It might not necessarily be making that strong statement, but it’ll be planning a strong course of action.”

Born and raised in Hawaii, Tui is of Samoan descent and came by his commitment to public education early in life.

“I grew up in public housing and kind of in a broken home, so I understand there’s a lot of students out there who can find salvation in school like I did,” Tui said. “That is the power of public school, I feel. So I just want to give back to public schools for essentially saving my younger years, for my teachers who inspired me to pursue my passions.”

Tui graduated from Castle High in 1994 and earned his bachelor’s in secondary education (mathematics) from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He taught math at Castle and McKinley high schools and then served as McKinley’s registrar for a decade. Throughout his career in the schools, he volunteered to help with student activities, advising the math and robotics teams and Castle’s Polynesian Club.

At the HSTA, Tui led the negotiations committee and chaired its Honolulu chapter before being elected vice president in 2018.

He is known for sharing information broadly with members, and was nicknamed the “Memo King” for finding and posting Department of Education memos on his Facebook page to help everyone keep up with fast-breaking changes throughout the pandemic.

“I post as many memos as I can because you never know who it will affect,” he said. “Teachers can get information and take it back to their administrators. It’s been a tough year for administrators.”

ONE ISSUE that needs to be resolved soon, he said, is whether schools will offer a distance learning option going into the fall. Kishimoto has announced that all schools will be back to full in-person learning.

Tui said it’s fortunate that teachers were vaccinated early and that students aged 12 and up have access to vaccines. But he expects some families will still want to keep their kids home and believes the department needs to find out how many and prepare for that.

“Do we want to turn them away from all services and say you just have to homeschool your child?” Tui asked. “That’s really doing them a disservice.”

With school set to start Aug. 3, two days after Hayashi takes over as interim superintendent, the clock is ticking.

“If we don’t ask, we can’t plan for it,” Tui said. “We’re going to have to figure out who’s going to be the teacher for those kids. They don’t just come out of thin air.”