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. 524 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to replace the five-year teaching requirement for principals and vice-principals with school-level experience. The measure also enables the Department of Education to waive the certification and school-level experience requirements for vice-principal candidates with appropriate administrative experience.

Your Committee heard testimony in support to the measure from the Department of Education, and in opposition to the measure from the Hawaii Government Employees Association.

Your Committee finds that the Department of Education recognizes a shortage of administrators and is willing to explore viable solutions. Given the broad variety of duties and responsibilities that a principal has, three years of teaching is sufficient to be the educational leader of a school, provided that they also have two additional years of appropriate school level experience. Requiring that principals have five years of school level experience will ensure that they have a systems perspective of the school that helps foster a school culture that is conducive to the learning of students and professional development of staff.

Furthermore, many vice-principals focus their efforts on areas unrelated to curriculum per se, such as facilities or personnel. Allowing the Department of Education to waive the certification and school-level experience for vice-principals with appropriate administrative experience will give the department the flexibility that will facilitate recruitment of the best and the brightest in these areas of specialization, whether they have been teachers or not.

Your Committee has amended the measure to require that a principal shall have served as a teacher for a period of not less than three years and have two additional years of appropriate school-level experience as determined by the department.

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. 524, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 524, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Labor.