RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the High Core Program, formerly operating as the Storefront School in Wahiawa, has been the Department of Education's Alternative Learning Center covering Central Oahu's North and South areas for the past thirty-eight years, and annually services three hundred of these areas' most severely alienated youth; and

WHEREAS, the High Core Program has welcomed regular education, special education, and students who act out in traditional school settings by exhibiting inappropriate behaviors towards themselves and others, and have been known to make significantly inappropriate choices and take inappropriate actions towards themselves and others; and

WHEREAS, the High Core Program enables students with special needs to engage in academic lessons and activities, and in intensive individual and family counseling, making it possible for them to earn the credits necessary either to graduate from high school or to be promoted to the next grade level; and

WHEREAS, the Committee on Weights and the Board of Education made the determination to exempt all Alternative Learning Centers in the State of Hawaii from the weighted student formula budgeting process, which includes the High Core Program in its entirety as the Central District's Alternative Learning Center; and

WHEREAS, the High Core Program has been funded by monies from the Department of Education's Alternative Learning Center and the Comprehensive School Alienation Program for more than two decades; and

WHEREAS, monies from the Comprehensive School Alienation Program are not exempt from the weighted student formula budgeting process; and

WHEREAS, the High Core Program is the only Alternative Learning Center that has been receiving Comprehensive School Alienation Program funding to conduct its work, and the only one that now stands to lose a necessary source of funding through implementation of the weighted student formula; and

WHEREAS, necessary and intensive academic and counseling services for severely alienated students in the Central school areas may have to be cut or reduced due to this unintentional loss of funding; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2006, the Senate concurring, that the Department of Education is requested to exempt from the weighted student formula budget process all Comprehensive School Alienation Program monies used for the High Core Program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the exempted funds will be combined with Alternative Learning Center funding to enable the High Core Program to continue to provide uninterrupted services as the Central District's North and South areas' Alternative Learning Center; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the exempted funds will allow the High Core Program to operate fully-funded in a manner similar to all other statewide Alternative Learning Centers, in accordance with the determination made by the Committee on Weights and the Board of Education; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this exemption shall continue for as long as it is necessary to preserve the High Core Program's funding intact, and ensure the equity of the services provided to severely alienated youth by Alternative Learning Centers statewide; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Chair of the Board of Education, the Chair of the Committee on Weights, the Superintendent of Education, and the Director of the High Core Program.

Report Title:

Comprehensive School Alienation Program Funds; High Core Program