Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1567, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Education to offer students, who are eligible for free or reduced cost school lunch, a subsidized school bus fare to their new school for up to one year when the students are forced to transfer schools because of overcrowding.

In addition, this measure also appropriates the sum of $1,000,000 to the Department of Education for fiscal year 2001-2002 to subsidize the school bus fare of students who are forced to transfer schools because of overcrowding.

Your Committee finds that rapid shifts in the distribution of an island's population can cause a school's enrollment count to greatly exceed its facility capacity. While one school may have enough classroom space to house complex and district resource teachers and educational specialists, another school may have to use parts of its library to provide additional space for classroom instruction. Since permanent classrooms cannot be relocated in the same manner as portable classrooms, and since even portable classrooms require a minimum amount of space, the Department of Education may have little choice but to redraw the boundaries of a school's geographic attendance area to alleviate overcrowding. Other options such as multi-track scheduling, which are designed specifically to deal with the effects of overcrowding, have met with strong community resistance.

Your Committee also finds that when the Department of Education forcibly transfers students to other schools because of overcrowding, families and communities are often disrupted. A student may be separated from a favorite teacher or best friend, and parents may lose the sense of community and solidarity developed with teachers, administrators, and other parents and children at their original home school. Logistical and transportation problems for families may also be accentuated.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1567, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1567, S.D. 2.