Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2660 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Education (DOE) to provide unlicensed individuals employed to teach on an emergency hire basis with information regarding alternative certification and licensure. This measure also requires the Board of Education (BOE) to consider educational outcome disparities between students taught by unlicensed persons and those taught by licensed teachers, and to adopt rules that support the hiring of qualified professional staff and the dissemination of information on licensure and certification.

The DOE, Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, and Hawaii State Teachers Association testified in support of this measure.

State law allows the hiring of unlicensed persons to teach on an emergency hire basis under certain conditions and limitations. Your Committees find that the quality of teaching by unlicensed individuals is enhanced if these individuals have obtained professional certification and, further, that the hiring of persons certified in special education, school counseling, and secondary level English proficiency has helped to reduce teacher shortages in these areas. This measure promotes professionalism in education by requiring the DOE to provide unlicensed emergency hires with information on alternative certification and licensure, requiring the BOE to consider data relating to educational outcomes of students taught by unlicensed persons, and by requiring the BOE to adopt rules that support the hiring of qualified professional staff.

Your Committees have made technical amendments to this measure for clarification.

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. 2660, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2660, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.