Question that has been asked before - hopefully with a bit of info and a twist!

[Tappan Zee]

Wasn't there a legislative bill introduced 4yrs ago called SB 2692 that was supposed to support "home grown" teachers in Hawaii.
Bill titled SB 2692 -Making an appropriation for the teacher recruitment pipeline.

It seems that the baby-boomer teachers exacerbated the teacher shortage when they decided to retire.
According to the bill, on average, after the first year, approximately forty per cent of the new
hires go back to the mainland or other jobs. After the second
year, this percentage increases to fifty per cent of the new
hires. This has led to a big problem in retaining the teachers.
Also, there seems to be a general preference for "home grown" teachers amongs students because the students connect better with the teachers.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessio...ls/sb2692_.pdf

[newUHprof]

Originally Posted by Tappan Zee

Wasn't there a legislative bill introduced 4yrs ago called SB 2692 that was supposed to support "home grown" teachers in Hawaii.
Bill titled SB 2692 -Making an appropriation for the teacher recruitment pipeline.

The poster was asking about *college* teaching, not governed by the DOE and not the subject of this bill.

[CyberCity]

When I read the OP's first posting, "I currently live in Illinois and I am teaching adjunct (wish it was full time lol) at a couple community colleges and working part time at a coffee shop", I'd assumed that they were probably open to any sort of teaching position they could get ... even a DOE school would be closer to a college teaching position than a coffee shop job.

[KauaiHiker]

Maybe I'm just a jaded forum poster by now as well, but my first response was going to be very similar to whtviper1's.

OP's situation is a bit different since he qualifies for university teaching positions, but there are also less of those in HI. Looking at the Kaua'i Community College website, I don't see any art classes. Also, I know that the neighbor islands have a lot of local artists, and some of them must have teaching credentials. The art scene here has more independent art studios and sales to tourists as opposed to a big city like San Francisco with it's Academy of Arts University that attracts students from all over just because it's in SF (it also has the reputation of being a student-visa mill and diploma mill).

I'm also of the opinion that debt is an albatross around your neck (poor albatross). You say "just" have student loans as if they were insignificant, but just paying the interest is keeping you poor right now. Even if you got a dream teaching position in HI at 60K+, the cost of living would still make it hard for you to retire that debt. Though it seems like you're a hard worker and good at frugal living, so maybe you could make it work. Then you ask "Why not struggle a bit somewhere I would much rather be?" The answer is because at anything less than 60K in HI, you won't be struggling the same ("just" a bit) as where you are now, you'll be in dire straits. Coming over with no job could give you credit card debt as well.

Some more questions to think about:
- Is your spouse as enthusiastic about moving as your are?
- Are you going to miss being close to your families?
- Do you have pets?

[smarino]

As an artist/photographer, I'm trying to figure out how you're tying this to higher education. There isn't any correlation between the two. Do you think that you learn art at a college? If you wish to teach, then that's another subject. But every artist I knew in Hawaii or anywhere else got there by working very hard on their own, or by studying under another artist. And none of them were taught art. You can learn technique, but that old canard is really true. You either got it or you don't.