Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 60 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for twenty school assessment liaison positions within the Department of Education (DOE).

The DOE and Hawaii Government Employees Association supported this measure. The Hawaii State Teachers Association supported the measure's intent.

School assistant liaisons provide professional development and technical assistance to teachers and principals, and are a critical component of the DOE's efforts to meet annual progress benchmarks required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Currently, there are only twenty-three and a half full-time school assessment liaisons statewide to provide assistance to forty-three complexes. This measure will enable the DOE to place one school assessment liaison within each complex.

Your Committee recommends an appropriation of $695,000 for each year of the fiscal biennium 2003-2005.

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. 60 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.