Appropriates funds to expand the Families for Resources for Early Access Learning program.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that parents are a child's first and most significant teachers. Brain research reveals that the development of neural patterns that promote or inhibit learning throughout life are dependent on the person's environment and experiences in the early years, from birth through eight years of age. Therefore, one of the best approaches to a child's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development is to empower parents in their role of providing a caring and intellectually stimulating environment in their child's earliest years. The Families for Resources for Early Access to Learning (Families for R.E.A.L.) program, based on Minnesota's statewide Early Childhood/Family Education Model, has done just that.

Families for R.E.A.L. is a public school early childhood/family education program for parents of children whose ages range from post-birth to five years, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The program operates in trimesters, each lasting nine weeks. Parents and their child attend classes once a week for nine weeks on the weekday designated for their child's age group. Parents learn developmentally appropriate parenting/teaching skills, network with other parents, and learn how to access community resources even after they have completed the program. While parents learn to become stronger and more confident teachers in their own homes, the children learn social, physical, early literacy, and numeric skills.

Currently, there are three program sites across the state: Pearl City Highlands Elementary School, Kapunahala Elementary School in the Windward District, and Wailuku Union Church in the Maui District. Each site serves three hundred fifty to five hundred families or one thousand individuals, including both parents and children, per year. Kindergarten teachers consistently report that children who attend Families for R.E.A.L. come to school ready to learn. The legislature finds that Families for R.E.A.L. prepares both parents and children for a smooth transition into kindergarten and that parents remain actively involved in their children's elementary school education.

The family support section of the department of education and Families for R.E.A.L. site teams have also produced content and performance standards for parents participating in the program and have shared their experiences with others in the early childhood/family field.

Not surprisingly, each of the three Families for R.E.A.L. sites has a waitlist of five hundred families or one thousand parents and children. In addition, thousands of parents have been sent to Families for R.E.A.L. by parent alumnae, educators, courts, and other health, social, and educational agencies. Therefore, the purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation to establish the program in the Honolulu, Central, Kauai, and Hawaii districts so that parents in each school district can have a full-fledged anchor site.

The legislature also finds that maintaining one center in each district is insufficient for heavily populated districts or in districts where distance isolates families from accessing early childhood/family services. It is therefore the intent of the legislature to also fund ten satellite sites to serve populations where a need and demand exists. Professional development services to train staff and to establish new district and satellite sites will be provided by the family support section of the department of education and the existing staff of the three Families for R.E.A.L. sites. Other resource persons from the early childhood field and community will also be tapped.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $880,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2005-2006 to fund and expand the Families for Resources for Early Access to Learning (R.E.A.L.) program, and to be expended as follows:

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of education for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2005.