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. 534 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a training and incentive program for master teachers.

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

Your Committees find that teachers' knowledge and skills should be rewarded in ways that allow them to continue teaching rather than forcing them to leave the classroom. In addition, support for beginning teachers and other teachers needing assistance would improve the quality of instruction, and the achievements and successes of the students in the classroom.

Your Committees have amended the measure to make the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board rather than the Department of Education the entity that creates the professional development criteria for the masters teacher program. Your Committees have also deleted a provision allowing the certification to be valid for five years in favor of another provision making certification contingent upon a satisfactory annual performance review.

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. 534, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 534, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.