HONOLULU — A teacher wanted on charges of having sex with a student in Arizona recently began teaching in a Hawaii public school.
HONOLULU — A teacher wanted on charges of having sex with a student in Arizona recently began teaching in a Hawaii public school.
Honolulu police and U.S. marshals arrested Deborah Hoshiyama, 45, early Tuesday at a Waikiki condominium. She’s also known as Deborah Nicholson.
She was wanted on a warrant from Maricopa County, where a grand jury indicted her Oct. 20 on five counts of sexual contact with a minor, the Marshals Service said. She’s accused of having sex with a student in 2008 while a teacher in Avondale, Arizona.
Arizona-based marshals tracked Hoshiyama to Honolulu, where she had been living for a month or two in the condo with a man believed to be her boyfriend and her two teenage children, said Nolan Sasaki, senior inspector with the Marshals Service Violent Offender Task Force in Hawaii.
She began working at Voyager Public Charter School in Honolulu as a special education teacher in kindergarten, first and second grades on Nov. 7, Principal Jeff Vilardi said. She worked at the school for six days — five with students present — and has been suspended with pay, he said.
Vilardi said he heard about the arrest from a staff member who saw a news story.
“I don’t know her well enough,” he said. “She was very impressive in her interviews and had fantastic references.”
Vilardi said he checked three references and was under the impression the state Department of Education conducted a criminal background check. The department pays for and fills all special education positions, including at charter schools, Vilardi said.
But department spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Hoshiyama didn’t have clearance to begin working at Voyager. The department “did not give the green light to move forward, as her application was still being processed,” Dela Cruz said in an email Tuesday. “The first part of the criminal background check was completed yesterday afternoon and the second part was just about to start.”
According to the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, Hoshiyama was licensed in the state from Oct. 1. Her license is for reading specialist, special education and teaching English to speakers of other languages for kindergarten through 12th grade.
Teachers seeking licensing in Hawaii are searched in a national database for any convictions or previous actions taken on a license in another state, but neither showed up for Hoshiyama, said Lynn Hammonds, executive director of the board.
Hoshiyama couldn’t be reached for comment while in police custody. An extradition hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
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Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.