Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 132 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to maintain and expand the Department of Education's Peer Education Program.

Testimony in support of the measure was received from the Department of Education, the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, and numerous school teachers, educational personnel, students, and community groups.

Specifically, the measure appropriates $1,086,250 for the upcoming fiscal year to maintain the Peer Education Program in twenty-six schools statewide, and to expand the program to include five new schools.

Your Committee finds that the Peer Education Program was established in 1988 to address such serious teen health issues as pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, violence, and suicide. The Department of Education has assumed the lead in the program by establishing broad-based, systemic, adolescent health prevention programs in the State's secondary schools. The services provided by the Peer Education Program have become an essential component in our public school system, and support the implementation of the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards for Health Education and the Comprehensive Student Support System. In so doing, the Peer Education Program attempts to educate teens on critical health issues and provides support to students who are at risk or in crisis, thus diminishing the cost and services needed for future adult intervention efforts. As a result, student peer educators become lifelong advocates for healthy living, and the students they service become more aware of critical health issues and make better choices.

Your Committee believes that the Peer Education Program is accomplishing its goals and should be expanded to other schools.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 132 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.