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All states / Hawaii

Hawaii

Verified against current sources (2026-05-08) Cite this page ↓

Hawaii offers a standalone Bilingual Education certification; ELD/ESL is available both as a standalone license and as an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2021, 10.0% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-08.

10.0%
classified ELs (2021-10-01)
view trend →
Bil + ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual education

  • Standalone certification
Approved program
Unknown
Coursework
Unknown
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Unknown
Language proficiency
Unknown

HTSB issues standalone 'Kaiapuni Hawaiʻi / Hawaiian Language Immersion' and 'ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi / Hawaiian Language' license fields, which roll up under the canonical 'bilingual' umbrella as heritage/medium-of-instruction credentials. These primarily serve Native Hawaiian / Hawaiian-medium students rather than classified ELs in the Spanish/Asian-language sense; requirements are null pending direct citation of HTSB rules (HAR 8-54 series), which were not reachable from this verification session.

ESL License Field

  • Standalone certification
  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Unknown
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Required

HTSB issues a standalone 'Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages' (TESOL) license field at P-3, K-6, 6-8, 6-12, P-12, and K-12 grade bands. Coursework and a content test are required (Praxis ESOL); program and practicum requirements are null because HTSB's content-area-specific rules pages were not reachable from this 2026 refresh session.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2015.

Source: sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

ELP assessment

Annual English Language Proficiency test used for EL identification and reclassification.

ACCESS for ELLs · WIDA Consortium member.

Source: wida.wisc.edu (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

Dated policy and verification events shaping this state's EL teacher credentials.

  1. Hawaii Constitution amended — Hawaiian becomes co-official language with English

    At the 1978 Constitutional Convention voters ratified Article XV § 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution, making Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) an official language of the State alongside English — the only U.S. state to officially recognize a Native language at constitutional level. Article X § 4 simultaneously requires the State to promote "the study of Hawaiian culture, history, and language." The 1978 amendments are the constitutional predicate for the Hawaiian-medium (Kaiapuni) public-school program, the HTSB Hawaiian Language Immersion teacher fields that this record codes under bilingual, and the State's bilingual approach to EL students whose home language is Hawaiian or a Pacific-Island language.

    lrb.hawaii.gov (opens in a new tab)

  2. Act 89 lifts the ban on Hawaiian-medium public instruction

    The Hawaii Legislature passed Act 89 (1986) repealing the lingering 1896 prohibition on teaching public school subjects in Hawaiian. Coupled with the 1978 constitutional amendment, Act 89 enabled the Department of Education to establish Ka Papahana Kaiapuni — the Hawaiian-medium public-school program — initially at two pilot sites in 1987 and now at over 20 schools statewide. Act 89 is the operational basis for the Hawaiian Language Immersion teacher fields HTSB issues today and is functionally why Hawaii is coded as a bilingual-program-offering state.

    capitol.hawaii.gov (opens in a new tab)

  3. Hawaii adopts the State Seal of Biliteracy

    Act 224 (SLH 2015 / SB 1394) authorizes a State Seal of Biliteracy for graduating high-school students who demonstrate proficiency in English plus one or more additional languages, including ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. Hawaii is among the early-adopter states.

    sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

  4. EPAA 29(100) document analysis (Leider, Colombo & Nerlino, 2021)

    Leider, Colombo & Nerlino published in Education Policy Analysis Archives 29(100) a comprehensive document analysis of every state and DC's bilingual, ELD/ESL, and SEI teacher-credentialing requirements, professional teaching standards mentions, and EL-percentage figures, based on primary SEA sources collected October–December 2019. The 2019 coding of Hawaii's EL-credentialing landscape is preserved as a temporally-anchored research baseline against which the catalog's later verifications are framed.

    doi.org (opens in a new tab)

  5. NCES Fall 2021 EL count: 17,353 students (10.0%)

    Per NCES Digest Table 204.20, Hawaii's classified-EL share of public-school enrollment rose to 10.0% in Fall 2021, up from 9.5% in Fall 2020 and 7.0% at its 2016 trough. The state remains a WIDA Consortium member and administers ACCESS for ELLs annually.

    nces.ed.gov (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] Hawaii Public Schools / HTSB (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  2. [2] Leider, Colombo & Nerlino (2021), EPAA 29(100). Tables 2-5 + Appendix A. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  3. [3] Hawaii Teacher Performance Standards (HTPS) — full 10-standard set used by HTSB for program approval and licensure. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] HTSB License Fields matrix — current list of license fields and grade-band configurations, including TESOL and Hawaiian Language Immersion. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 204.20 — English learners enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, by state: Fall 2011 through Fall 2021. Hawaii Fall 2021 = 10.0%. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] WIDA Consortium membership — Hawaii is a member; uses ACCESS for ELLs as the annual English language proficiency assessment. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] Seal of Biliteracy — Hawaii state profile; Seal adopted in 2015 (Act 224, SLH 2015 / SB 1394). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08

Cite this page

Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.

APA
projectcert. (2026, May 8). Hawaii EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/hi/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
BibTeX
@misc{projectcert_hi_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{Hawaii EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/hi/},
  urldate = {2026-05-08},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-08}
}
@article{leider2021decentralization,
  author  = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika},
  title   = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}},
  journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {100},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279}
}

See the methodology for how these data were collected, or the glossary for term definitions.