Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 526 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purposes of this measure are to require the Department of Education to establish a teacher mentoring program, to allow the superintendent of education to waive licensing requirements in times of teacher shortages, and to require ongoing professional development for teachers.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education and the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board.

Your Committees find that young teachers face many difficulties when entering the profession, and that a teacher mentoring program would help to ease the transition. Your Committees agree that teachers who agree to become mentors should received additional benefits for their service.

Aside from formalizing the mentoring program, your Committee supports the remainder of the amendments in this measure. Your Committees believe that the superintendent should have more flexibility to retain teachers in times of shortages.

Your Committees also feel that an ongoing professional development program would ensure that our teachers are well versed in current teaching methods and the latest advancements in the profession. In implementing this program, your Committees believe that the Department should work as closely as possible with our teachers, whose efforts are ongoing.

Your Committees amended this measure based on the testimony submitted by the Department. The Department's suggested amendments are nonsubstantive, and reflect the current terminology used within the Department and the teaching profession.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 526, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 526, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.