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. 537 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purposes of this measure as referred to your Committee were to include special education students in computing the statewide student/teacher ratio, to increase the number of Education Assistants, and to provide Education Assistants with proper training.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education and the Disability and Communication Access Board.

Your Committee recognizes that the Felix Consent Decree requires that a new teacher allocation methodology be developed. The number of Education Assistants and other positions must be dramatically increased to meet the needs of Hawaii's special education students. Your Committee further recognizes that one of the most pressing issues facing the Department in complying with the Felix Consent Decree is insufficient funding.

Therefore, your Committee has amended this measure by deleting its contents and replacing it with language to appropriate funds for the department of education to prepare the new teacher allocation methodology, and to fund the new positions created by the new methodology. Your Committee listed the positions to be funded, but left the funding amounts blank for determination by your Committee on Ways and Means.

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. 537, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 537, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.