Efforts to restore instructional days to the public school calendar ran aground again Wednesday when the most recent round of labor negotiations broke down a few hours after they started.

This is not how negotiations are supposed to work, especially when time for reaching a settlement is running short — and when the beneficiaries of the revised agreement are public-school children.

It's simply unconscionable that the positions on both sides seem to be hardening. If the negotiators really do believe that the children come first, then they should sit at the bargaining table and not get up until they've reached a solution.

It should be their top priority to cement a deal by the end of the year.

Otherwise, the closer it gets to the Legislature's opening day a month from now — when the clamor for scarce funds grows louder from social service agencies and others in need — the less likely it becomes for students to get adequate relief, at least not during the current school year.

The Lingle administration made the first overture to revise its contract with the Hawaii State Teachers Association, a deal that had closed schools on furlough days to balance the state budget. The new offer was $50 million from the state's rainy-day fund to buy back some of the 27 furlough days scheduled between now and the end of the 2010-11 academic year. That was a good start, but the potential for agreement then started to fracture along several fault lines.

There's discord over which teachers would be called back to work and over whether teachers could sacrifice their planning days in order to restore classroom days beyond what $50 million can buy.

The governor wants agreement from the union on a plan covering all 27 days. But the union maintains that some schools can't afford to lose all their planning days because of pressing commitments imposed by the No Child Left Behind law and other needs.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education has divided HSTA into essential and nonessential categories; the Lingle plan would buy back furlough days only for essential teachers — primarily those in the classroom. The union is leery of restoring pay to only some of its members.

It may help negotiators strike a deal if the interests of kids are kept paramount. The administration should consider a shorter-term, compromise plan that would restore at least some of the furlough days, starting with the ones that come first, in the spring semester.

There may be federal help with the later ones: The U.S. House has passed a jobs bill, using leftover Troubled Assets Relief Program funds. It includes an estimated $90 million for Hawai'i "teacher retention" in the 2010-2011 school year. A twin provision has yet to clear the Senate, but the prospect of future aid underscores why it makes sense to settle on a plan — quickly — cancelling the most immediate furlough days.

As for the HSTA: Much as unions balk at plans that restore pay to some, but not all, of their members, fiscal constraints are so tight that this is what it will take to do what's best for the students. And things are going to get worse before they get better. Last week the state Council on Revenues had more bad news pointing to an additional $40 million budgetary shortfall.

The governor's team and negotiators for the school system and teachers union must get back at the bargaining table — now. Until they hammer out a plan to restore school days, they're letting down the very kids they've pledged to serve.