STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3615

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.C.R. No. 137

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Education, to which was referred H.C.R. No. 137 entitled:

"HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO AFFIRM ITS COMMITMENT TO UPHOLD THE TENETS OF TITLE IX OF THE EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT OF 1972,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to request the Department of Education to affirm its commitment to uphold the tenets of Title IX of the Education Amendment Act of 1972.

     Prior to the hearing on this measure, your Committee posted and made available for public review a proposed S.D. 1, which deleted its content and inserted language to request the Department of Education to convene a working group to review after-school programs in Hawaii's public middle and intermediate schools.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of the proposed S.D. 1 from After-School All-Stars Hawaii, Hawaii Afterschool Alliance, and seven individuals.  Your Committee received comments on the proposed S.D. 1 from the Department of Education, Department of Human Services, and Office of Youth Services.

Your Committee finds that middle and intermediate school students often lack opportunities for safe and structured activities after school.  This lack of activities has an especially negative impact on students from low-income families in which parents must often work long hours that keep those parents from being at home after school hours.  Your Committee further finds that the Department of Education established the After-School Plus Program in 1990 to provide after-school care, including enrichment activities and supervised recreational activities, until 5:30 p.m. at more than one hundred-ninety participating schools.  This program is open to elementary school students whose parents work, attend school, or participate in job-training programs, but no similar program exists for students in middle and intermediate public schools.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by adopting the proposed S.D. 1.

     Your Committee notes that the perspective of additional non‑profit groups that are actively engaged in after school programing would be valuable to the working group and such non-profit groups may be better equipped to convene the working group.  As such, your Committee requests that should your Committee on Ways and Means consider this measure for passage, that two representatives from such non-profit groups be added to the working group and that the Hawaii Afterschool Alliance convene the working group.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of H.C.R. No. 137, as amended herein, and recommends that it be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means, in the form attached hereto as H.C.R. No. 137, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Education,

________________________________

MICHELLE N. KIDANI, Chair