The Long Game: How Hawaii Is Investing in Its Future Teachers

May 21, 2026 | podcast

Host: Kathleen Vail
Guest: Dr. Janet Kim

Hawaii is one of the most geographically isolated places on Earth — and one of the most complex when it comes to recruiting and retaining teachers. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Janet Kim, a tenure-track faculty member at the University of Hawaii at Manoa whose job is one of a kind: recruiting the next generation of educators into the profession full-time.

Janet traces her own winding path from Northern Virginia military kid to elementary special education teacher to the first (and possibly only) tenure-track university faculty position dedicated exclusively to teacher recruitment. Along the way, she shares how she helped bring Educators Rising to Hawaii — and why she believes it’s the missing piece the state’s teacher pipeline has long needed.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: the revolving door of mainland teachers who come to Hawaii but don’t stay, the statewide coalition that finally stopped the blame game and started building solutions, differential pay for hard-to-fill positions (special ed, Hawaiian language immersion, rural/remote schools), and why recruitment without retention is only half the answer.

Janet also shares her “Ed Rising moment” — and a second-grade teacher named Miss Sweet who quietly changed everything.

In this episode:

  • Why Hawaii’s geographic isolation creates a unique case study for teacher recruitment
  • How Educators Rising fills a gap that other CTSOs don’t: a space dedicated exclusively to future educators
  • The statewide stakeholder coalition that helped Hawaii move from identifying problems to building solutions
  • Hawaii’s differential pay strategy for special education, Hawaiian language immersion, and rural positions — and what it’s teaching them about the limits of recruitment alone
  • Why early, hands-on experience is the strongest predictor of teacher retention
  • Janet’s personal “Ed Rising moment” and the story of Miss Sweet’s hall pass

Dr. Kim was recognized at the 2025 Educators Rising National Conference as an Educators Rising Champion.

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