Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2145, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate unspecified sums to the Department of Education for fiscal year 2002-2003 to expand the Families for R.E.A.L. program to the Honolulu, Central, Kauai, and Hawaii departmental school districts, and to conduct a longitudinal study of the Families for R.E.A.L. program.

Your Committee finds that the Families for R.E.A.L. (Resources for Early Access to Learning) program is based on the premise that parents serve as their children's first and most important teachers. Consequently, parents have the opportunity to positively influence their children's learning experiences and development long before they enter school.

Your Committee also finds that the Department of Education currently operates a Families for R.E.A.L. program in the Windward, Central, and Maui departmental school districts. Since the Department of Education is planning to eventually establish fourteen Families for R.E.A.L. program sites throughout the State, your Committee believes that a longitudinal study of the program is in order.

Such a study will help to validate mounting anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that the Families for R.E.A.L. program exerts a positive influence on student achievement. For example, long waiting lists (ranging from 100-500 families per site) and consistent teacher reports (upon entry to elementary school) suggest that children who attend the Families for R.E.A.L. program are more ready to learn than children who do not have this experience.

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. 2145, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.