STAND. COM. REP. NO. 227-20

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2020

RE: H.B. No. 2048

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2020

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Lower & Higher Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 2048 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BULLYING,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to train selected public middle school teachers on bullying intervention and have those selected public middle school teachers provide training on bullying intervention to other public school employees in their respective schools.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Youth Services Network, American Association of University Women of Hawaii, Hawaii Women's Coalition, LGBT Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Hawaii Children's Action Network Speaks!, and four individuals. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Education and State Public Charter School Commission.

Your Committee finds that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, more than twenty-two percent of middle school students in Hawaii were victims of cyber-bullying and forty percent were bullied on school property during the twelve-month period addressed by the survey. Additionally, more than twenty-three percent seriously considered suicide and more than twelve percent attempted suicide one or more times during the twelve-month period addressed by the survey. This measure is intended to reduce bullying in public schools by providing funding for certain public middle school teachers to attend an evidence-informed or evidence-based and culturally relevant bullying intervention training session and pass on that training to other public school employees in their respective schools.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Changing the amount appropriated to an unspecified amount; and

(2) Changing its effective date to July 1, 2050.

Should your Committee on Finance decide to hear this measure, your Committee respectfully requests that it appropriate $20,000 for eight bullying intervention training sessions to be attended by selected public middle school teachers and for the selected public middle school teachers to provide training on bullying intervention to other public school employees in their respective schools.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Lower & Higher Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2048, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2048, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Lower & Higher Education,

____________________________

JUSTIN H. WOODSON, Chair