STAND. COM. REP. NO. 180

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: H.B. No. 626

H.D. 1

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 626 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EDUCATION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Education to expand the Hoʻākea Program.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education; Mayor of the County of Hawaiʻi; one member of the Hawaiʻi County Council; Department of Parks and Recreation of the County of Hawaiʻi; Kingdom Pathways; Mālama Learning Center; Mālama ʻĀina Foundation; Hui O Waʻa Kaulua; Kaʻala Farm; Laʻiʻōpua 2020; Kuleana Coral Restoration; Maui Hulia Foundation; and numerous individuals.

Your Committee finds that the Department of Education's Hoʻākea: Mauka to Makai Navigating our Future Program is designed to educate students by integrating core educational concepts in math, science, social studies, civics, leadership, language, and literacy with cultural practices and traditions in ʻāina and community settings, with lesson plans integrating environmental stewardship, climate change, Native Hawaiian practices, responsibility to care for community, total well‑being, and a sense of place. The Hoʻākea Program has reached over three thousand two hundred students and nearly one thousand three hundred teachers and engaged more than fifty organizations across Hawaii. Your Committee recognizes that the Department of Education cannot meet the increasing demand from schools for ʻāina‑based learning experiences with existing resources. This measure will provide the Department of Education with sufficient funding and enable the Department to triple engagement with the Hoʻākea Program by 2027.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

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

(2) Changing the effective date to July 1, 3000; and

(3) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

Your Committee respectfully requests your Committee on Finance, should it choose to deliberate on this measure, to consider an appropriation amount of $3,500,000 for funding for the Hoʻākea Program.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 626, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 626, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

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

____________________________

JUSTIN H. WOODSON, Chair