HB2002 SD1 SSCR3088

STAND. COM. REP. 3088

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: H.B. No. 2002

H.D. 2

S.D. 1

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 2002, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EDUCATION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to implement education reform and decentralization measures and establish a weighted student formula for providing operating moneys to individual public schools.

Your Committees received testimony in support of the measure from the Board of Education, Department of Education, Department of Health, Hawaii State Teachers Association, Hawaii Government Employees Association, Hawaii Business Roundtable, and a high school student. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to the measure from the Governor, Department of Budget and Finance, Department of Accounting and General Services, and a member of the Board of Education. Your Committees received comments on the measure from the Department of Human Resources Development and Special Education Advisory Council.

Your Committees find that the public at large feels the need for more meaningful opportunities to collaborate with the system on its direction, objectives, and management. With this perceived loss of access has come a corresponding loss of confidence in the institution that expends a very significant portion of their hard-earned tax dollars.

Your Committees find that this public sentiment provides the Legislature with a unique opportunity to enact historic reform. Both bodies of this Legislature have crafted equally ambitious programs of reform. Although the visions are not identical they agree in many substantial and important ways. Both see school community councils as a means for the stakeholders at the school level to become more engaged with the principal in a collaborative leadership of their learning communities. Both houses agree on the need to give principals more latitude in how they choose to run their schools and greater control over a larger portion of the department budget dedicated to their school. Both houses see the weighted student formula as a useful new means of establishing per-pupil student allocations, in which the funding follows the student to whichever school they attend, formulated according to a system of weights corresponding to the elements that make that student a unique learner. This system has already proven effective in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Both houses agree on the need to transfer a number of important functions carried out by other state agencies for the Department of Education to the department, to enhance autonomy and operating efficiency. In spite of agreement on these and many other elements of the reform package, differences do remain.

Your Committees have amended the measure by:

(1) Clarifying that the Department of Education shall determine the appropriate amount of funding that can be effectively and efficiently budgeted and administered by the school principal under the weighted student formula, providing for per-pupil allocations to be provided directly to the principal at the beginning of the next few fiscal years to facilitate a phased implementation of the formula;

(2) Requiring the committee on weights to establish targets for the weighted student formula as a percentage of the total annual budget of the Department of Education over the next few fiscal years to facilitate its phased-in implementation;

(3) Establishing a ceiling on the reimbursement of the application fee for successful applicants to national board teacher certification at $3,500, and deleting the ability to be reimbursed for any other expenses relating to the application;

(4) Allowing the Hawaii Principals Academy to support and train complex area superintendents and prospective principals as well as principals, paralleling the performance indicators for which administrators will be held accountable under the education accountability system;

(5) Including among the purposes of the Hawaii Principals Academy support and training of principals, prospective principals, and complex area superintendents in collaborating with members of the school community council;

(6) Reducing the annual carryover of funds allowed by the Department of Education from ten to seven percent, while allowing individual schools to exceed the seven percent cap;

(7) Clarifying the reciprocal powers, duties, and obligations of the principals and school community councils, including the adoption of budgets by 2/3 vote and all other decisions by majority vote;

(8) Establishing a formal appeals process in the event of disagreement between the principal and school community council, while retaining the ability of the principal to act as he or she sees fit, subject to appeal;

(9) Allowing the Superintendent of Education to recommend dissolution of school community councils to the Board of Education, rather than authorizing the Superintendent to do so directly;

(10) Making technical clarifications as to how the school community councils choose their members and fill vacancies;

(11) Exempting charter schools, alternative schools, laboratory schools, and schools serving special needs populations from the weighted student formula funding system, school community councils, and class size and student-teacher ratio requirements;

(12) Adding the accountability provisions of Senate Bill No. 3238, S.D. 2 (which were previously contained in Senate Bill No. 2059 S.D. 1) and integrating them into an amended version of the financial accountability provisions already in the measure, such amendments reflecting their enhanced budgetary control under the weighted student formula funding system, including provisions for evaluating complex area superintendents and principals, and also including enhanced programmatic and fiscal performance measures (including a three year longitudinal report card for the school, school complex, and public education system;

(13) Making explicit that teachers, principals, and those with the appropriate skills and qualifications that shall serve on the committee of weight;

(14) Postponing the transfer of school repair and maintenance functions from the Department of Accounting and General Services to the Department of Education;

(15) Adding "resources," and "databases, software, and programming," to boilerplate language regarding the transfer of tangible assets relating to the transfer of school repair and maintenance functions from the Department of Accounting and General Services to the Department of Education;

(16) Allowing the Superintendent of Education to appoint community members to the interagency working group on the reduction of bureaucracy;

(17) Providing for per-pupil allocations to be provided directly to the principal no later than July 1, 2005 as a step towards empowering the school community council;

(18) Adding a new section regarding geographic exemptions and empowering the principal with greater latitude to grant exemptions based on the principal's expectation of enhanced learning for the pupil and the pupil's potential contribution to the school community;

(19) Adding a section making an appropriation for business managers;

(20) Adding a section making an appropriation for textbooks, provided that the curriculum is aligned within the school complex; and reinserting a substantial number of earlier Senate measures that were previously inserted in Senate Bill No. 3238 S.D. 2, including S.B. No. 2055, S.D. 1; S.B. No. 2057; S.B. No. 2062; S.B. No. 2069, S.D. 1; S.B. No. 2111; S.B. No. 2172; S.B. No. 2318, S.D. 1; S.B. No. 2755; S.B. No. 2757; S.B. No. 3205, S.D. 1, and S.B. 2070, S.D. 1, which respectively:

(21) Provide that the salary schedules of principals and vice-principals and of all other educational officers shall be based on a twelve-month term of service; provide retention bonuses for principals and vice-principals; and make an appropriation for the additional two months' salary for high school principals (SB2055 SD1, although amending this measure to provide that retention bonuses shall only apply to distinguished service as determined by the education accountability system and performance contracts;

(22) Make an appropriation for additional faculty positions at the University of Hawaii's College of Education (SB2057);

(23) Make an appropriation to provide for one full time educational officer and one full time clerk in the Professional Development and Educational Research Institute (SB2062), although amending this measure to clarify that these positions include servicing the operation of the administrator certification of excellence (ACE) program;

(24) Support and recognize outstanding teaching by providing the Hawaii teacher standards board with continued funding for implementing and administering a program of support for national board certification candidates in the public schools (SB2069 SD1);

(25) Improve student achievement by continuing to support and fund parent-community networking centers, which create important partnerships among the home, school, and community (SB2111);

(26) Provide funding for full-time student activities coordinators in all public high schools (SB2172), although amending this measure to clarify that the positions shall serve year-round;

(27) Provide instructional support that is adequate to ensure superior performance in any assessment instruments by funding one permanent half-time teacher's aide for each public school third grade classroom (SB2318 SD1);

(28) Improve student learning by providing funding to reduce the ratio of students to teachers in kindergarten to grade three to not more than twenty-five students to one teacher (SB3205 SD1); and

(29) Build and support the teaching profession by providing funding to convert two existing Hawaii Teacher Standards Boards positions to permanent positions (SB2070 SD1).

Your Committees also made technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Ways and Means that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2002, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2002, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Education and Ways and Means,

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair		____________________________ NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair