STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1534

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.R. No. 108

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs and Education, to which was referred S.R. No. 108 entitled:

"SENATE RESOLUTION E HO‘OKIPA ANA I KA ‘AHAHUI KAUMOKU‘AINA NO KA HO‘ONA‘AUAO ‘ILIKINI,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to request that the Legislature recognize and extend its Aloha to the National Indian Education Association and its members who will be gathering in Hawaii for its thirty-eighth annual conference and to request the Governor to declare the fourth week of October as "Indigenous Education Week."

     No testimony was submitted to your Committees on this measure.

     Your Committees find that the National Indian Education Association is the oldest national association devoted to the education of indigenous people in the United States.  The education of Native Hawaiians is a focus of the Association.  In 2006, Dr. VerlieAnn Leimomi Kapule Malina-Wright was installed as the first President of the Association of Native Hawaiian ancestry due to her experience, demonstration, and advocacy of teaching and conducting classes entirely in Hawaiian.  This year, the Association will hold its annual convention in Honolulu on October 25 to 28, 2007, and your Committees look forward to and welcomes the Association upon its arrival in October.  Furthermore, your Committees recognize the important work of the National Indian Education Association, and appreciate the Association's focus on Native Hawaiian education and recognizing Hawaii's unique distinctions in indigenous education.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs and Education that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 108 and recommend its adoption.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs and Education,

____________________________ J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair	____________________________ RUSSELL S. KOKUBUN, Chair
	____________________________ NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair