State lawmakers are considering legislation that would make harassment or intimidation of school officials a misdemeanor offense in the wake of threats and angry remarks directed at education leaders over Covid-19 protocols at schools.

“Passage of this bill would help address the growing problem of harassment and threats our school leaders and staff have been facing,” interim state Department of Education Superintendent Keith Hayashi said at a recent legislative hearing.

In written testimony in support of House Bill 2125, which was requested by the DOE and included in a package of bills introduced by the governor, the department explained that the behavior has included “constant badgering, name calling and harassing of school officials with persistent telephone calls.”

“The polarization of society and overt disrespect for our government institutions that are fostered by social media have emboldened certain persons to harass and intimidate school officials with demeaning swear words and threats to their personal safety as well as job security when they have issues with the school,” the DOE wrote.

The bill recently passed with amendments out of the House Education Committee and next heads to the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. There is also a companion Senate bill.

While there are DOE policies that address unruly conduct by students against staff, this legislation is aimed at adults — specifically, parents who air their frustration against school administrators because they are upset with Covid-related procedures.

A wave of hostility toward school administrators, teachers and elected boards of education has spread across the U.S. during the pandemic, with schools becoming a battleground over differing viewpoints regarding Covid safety measures.

The National School Boards Association last September asked the Biden administration to address the rise of incivility at school boards across the country, saying public schools and their leaders “are under an immediate threat.”

In Hawaii, mask-wearing on public school grounds remains mandatory — except when eating meals — while DOE and state Department of Health guidance outlines quarantine restrictions when students are considered a close contact of a positive individual.

There is no Covid vaccination requirement for eligible students (those 5 and above), although unvaccinated students are subject to stricter testing and quarantine rules before returning to school.

Six out of 15 complex area superintendents in Hawaii pledged their support of the bill and at least eight DOE principals have signed on to written testimony in support.

Kyle Shimabukuro, principal at Mililani Mauka Elementary, submitted testimony saying he deals with “angry and belligerent people about once per month.”

While he said “active listening and empathy” on his part help him deescalate many situations, there are still “one or two incidents per year where the person is unreasonably aggressive and does not back down.”

“The pandemic has made these types of situations even worse,” Shimabukuro wrote, recounting an exchange with a parent upset about their child being directed to quarantine for five days due to being an unvaccinated close contact of someone who tested positive for Covid.

DOE spokeswoman Nanea Kalani said she does not have an exact number of cases or threats made against school officials in the current school year.

“Because we have over 40,000 employees, we don’t track that consistently,” Kalani said. “I only have anecdotal examples.”

Hawaii News Now first reported a series of harassing letters and death threats starting in June 2020 against Katherine Balatico, the Stevenson Middle School principal who is currently on worker’s compensation leave in response to the threats.

While the threats against Balatico did not specifically refer to school Covid protocols, she told Civil Beat she believes “any type of harassment, any type of terroristic threatening (against school officers) needs to be elevated to a felony.”

A new misdemeanor offense for harassment against an educational officer — which would include any school administrator, counselor, specialist, teacher or volunteer in a school program — would be treated more harshly than what is known as a “petty misdemeanor.”

“Generally speaking, misdemeanors are punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $2,000,” said Gary Yamashiroya, special assistant to Hawaii’s Attorney General.

This bill also acknowledges that school principals and other administrators and staff are often at the receiving end of threatening phone calls or letters. A spokesman for the Hawaii State Teachers Association said the group isn’t aware of any such behavior directed at teachers in recent years.

The Hawaii Government Employees Association, the union that represents principals and vice principals, supports the proposed legislation.

“Every school year, we are informed by our members of threats made directly at them or witnessed by them in the course of their employment and within the scope of their duties and responsibilities,” HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira wrote in testimony.

Joy Bulosan, a field services officer for the HGEA, said in an interview that such threats always existed before the Covid pandemic, with parents expressing anger over such things as the extent of services a child is receiving or an administrator’s leadership style.

“Everything is so divided now,” Bulosan said, adding that principals will even field angry calls from parents regarding less-than-clear or shifting pandemic guidance. In many cases, school leaders have had to forge ahead without clear guidance from top levels of administration.

At the recent House Education committee hearing, Bulosan recounted how an office assistant at a Windward-side school picked up the phone and received a death threat from an individual who said he would come to campus and hurt office staff.

Bulosan said later the threat stemmed from a social media post on the Instagram account of Hawaii News Reports late last month alleging that King Intermediate “segregates students if they are unvaxxed.”

Although the principal of King Intermediate declined to comment on the incident, Bulosan said that school administrators contacted the Honolulu Police Department which spent about an hour at the school to watch for unusual activity.

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said Monday the incident has been classified as harassment and there has been no arrest.

Despite the threats, some House lawmakers are wary about the criminal justice implications of such a bill.

Rep. Sonny Ganaden, a member of the House Education Committee and a public defender by occupation, questions whether increased criminalization is a way to stem such behavior. Although he voted to pass the bill out of committee, with reservations, he wonders whether it could lead to “unfair prosecution” in low-income or native Hawaiian communities.

“This is in a grey area of what the Legislature is trying to accomplish, which is preventing these incidents from happening at all,” Ganaden said.

“Do we need to amend the criminal statute or the DOE’s policy, or do we need to better educate parents to speak to teachers civilly about their students and students’ health?” he said. “If the end goal is to reduce threats of staff, when is increased penalties the way to do that or should we talk about having a more civil society?”