And so to ensure we have proper health um care for our kids while they're in school, we're partnering with the Hawaii Kiki program to fill in the gaps. Okay. Okay. So, who pays for the qualified cost? Um, the federal government has identified the geographic region, right? The um and so the cooperative agreements that we have in place with the FQC's have no money exchanged. I want to clarify if I can and build on on Heidi's response that the federally qualified centers serve as a medical care home. Those are the primary care providers. And through the Hawaii Kiki program, we have a constant referral process that when a student is uninsured or underinsured and needs more specialized care that they may be referred back to their primary care home, which would be the FQC. So they're they're kind of different scope, right? The the FQC is our medical care home.
Well, Kiki is providing school-based health services. So we do not ever intend to replace the child or their family's medical care home. Thank you for that explanation. Members, further questions. Not thank you. Okay, moving along. on Senate Bill 1044 relating to mental health appropriates monies to hire school-based youth. Mental health specialists for Hawaii Department of Education schools to testify. Superintendent Hayashi, please. Well, good afternoon, Chair Kedani, Vice Chair Marcato Kim, and members of the committee. I'm Heidi Armstrong, Department of Education. The department stands on its written testimony in support of this measure, and we thank you for um the opportunity to testify. I would like to add that the appropriation of funds to increase the school-based youth mental health workforce would strengthen the department's efforts to meet the needs of students in Hawaii schools um who who are experiencing trauma, grief, family separation, depression, and other crises.
So, we we welcome um the intentions of this bill. Thank you. I did not see a dollar amount in the bill, though. We're just going to pull a number out of the air or is there something we we can we'll submit to you a recommended appropriation? Thank you. Okay. Um, is there anyone on Zoom waiting to testify? Judith. Judith Clark. Yes, I'm here. Aloha chair, members of the committee. I'm Judith Clark, executive director of Hawaii Youth Services Network. Um, Teen Link Hawaii, a web-based statewide information and support resource for adolesccents, reported 29,560 website visits between April and September of 2022. Mental health and suicide were among the five most popular topics. uh we conduct evaluation for the Americanore program in the northern Marana Islands including a review of the reflection journals of but that are kept by the members who are high school seniors. We have seen a lot of comments in those journals around stress and mental health and I want to share a couple of them with you.
One member wrote, "There's just so many things going on with school and some things outside of school that made me feel so overwhelmed." Another shared what helped. From time to time, I would also talk to some people about my mental health, and I am really glad that I have people to talk about it while feeling comfortable. These comments show why we need mental health workers in our schools. Thank you for this opportunity to testify. Thank you, Judith. Next to testify is Hana Haya Abad individual. Good afternoon, Chair Kedani, Vice Chair Makado Kim, and other committee members. My name is Dejanna and I am in support of Senate Bill 1044. Aside from my own journey with mental health, as a professional in the field of social work, I've seen the effects that trauma can have on individuals well-being. And when I worked as a case manager, I saw the impact that abuse, bullying, separation from family and moving to and even moving into a new home or school can have on a young person.
I acknowledge that we already have counselors and professionals in the schools. However, Senate Bill 1044 is a step forward towards providing more access and more opportunities for children to seek support for their mental health. That said, please support Senate Bill 1044 and ensure the safety and well-being of the children here in Hawaii. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share my testimony. Mahalo. Thank you very much. Next to testify, Chris Caulfield, chair, Democratic Party of Hawaii Education Caucus. Is Chris there, please? It is Chris there not present on Zoom chair. Thank you. His testimony was in support. Next to testify, Leah Delos Santos, Youth Action Hawaii. Is Leah there? Not present on Zoom. Chair in support. Next, Richard Kagosuku, individual not present. And finally, Erica Skyler Hokkai, individual in support, not present on. Thank you.
Members, are there any questions of the testifiers? Heidi, please. Heidi, what's the difference between a mental health specialist and a mental health therapist? Currently, we we have two um positions that that provide um mental health type services to our students. We have our current BHS, our behavioral health specialists. We have 313 of those across the state um who who provide services to about 8,600 students. Um that the services that they provide are intensive interventions um counseling sessions, crisis response, um trauma response, they do mental health promotion activities and prevention activities. Um these BHS staff are um either licensed mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists or social workers or they provide these services under the direct supervision of a licensed clinical psychologist. The second position that we have that does more intensive um serves students with more intensive needs are our educational psychologists. And um currently we we are partnering with Shamanad University to um put 20 um um eligible applicants through this program um so that when they graduate they can return to our schools and provide this higher level of mental health services to our students.
So this bill is calling for mental health specialists. So what category would this in um in in in right we we want to increase the number of both um depending on our bianium budget requests the fund if if we aren't funded for our educational psychologists we do need these positions um it it helps prevent us from um having to write rely on residential placements for many of our students Um if we do if so we need to fill those positions. Well we have um we would like 20. How many vacancies do you have? 20. Do you have 20 vacancies and you want 20 more? I'm I'm going to ask Ida Bonila who leads this effort for us um in the department um to to give the fine details. Um hello chair, vice chair and committees of the members of the committ. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Um, currently we are hoping to establish the 20 educational psychologist positions. So, we just um entered into that um collaboration with the University of Shamanad to establish a doctoral program in educational psychology. And so, those folks will graduate from the program in 2025. And so the hope is that there's a cohort of 20 individuals um that will then enter into the DOE system and they have all signed contracts to um dedicate three years at a minimum of service. So we have 20 in that class. 20 all 20 signed All 20 signed a contract. Yes. And so this is in addition to the vacancies. Um we currently do um I know a concern area for us is our vacancies in our school psychology um role group and so we actually also just um worked on a collaboration with Shamanod to launch a school psychology homegrow program.
Um that first cohort will be for 20 individuals as well that we're recruiting from the public. Um through a USDO grant that the uh the school-based behavioral health program received in 2021 were able to fund tuition for that cohort and those individuals will also sign a three-year commitment to the department. So those folks hopefully that graduating class will fill our current vacancies for the school psychologist position. classes graduating when? Um, because of the internship situation, we can actually have that group working within our system in two years. So, let me see if I got this right. We have 20 vacancies and those 20 in psychologists working with Shaman out of the cohort hopefully to have them ready in two years. And you want you're asking in this bill for another 20 positions. Is that correct? 20 positions to work with conjunction again in the cohort with graduates coming out about 2025.
Uh we currently have 25 vacancies for the school psychologists that cohort would begin in fall of this year um to and the hope is right that in the in we're recruiting folks to fill those positions. Tony had 20 with the cohort studying in two years you want 20 more and then you're saying you have another 20 vacancies. Um the educational psychologist is not a position that currently exists within the department. We are asking to establish those. Okay. So this bill asks for what does this bill ask for? This bill was um providing resources for the department to hire additional youth mental health providers. So where did this fit in with what you just told us? So if if the legislature was to grant us monies, um we would like to utilize those funding. Um if we do not get the bianium request for the educational psychologist um if we don't get that request, we'd like to utilize any funding that you folks provide to support those positions that we would establish.
Um, if we do get that bianium request, we do have a behavioral health specialist position and we would welcome the opportunity to expand that program and offer additional positions for complex areas that have increased needs. Still not getting my question answered. What are you asking for in the state? What are you asking for? We're we're asking for funding to increase the number of um personnel who are specialized in servicing our students with um mental health needs. And the the those positions include our behavioral health specialist positions, our BHS's, educational psychologists, which are in training now and will be available to us for hire in 2025 and then increasing the number of school psychologists. So how many positions is this all together? At a minimum it would be 20 20 educational psychologists and then ideally we would like a behavioral health specialist in every school. Right now um our behavioral health specialists can serve multiple schools.
So um we would have to put that number on paper um how many we have currently and how many more we need to service every school you know I raised the same concern about we have vacancies now you going to fill all these positions in the cohort how you we're working very hard to partner with our um postsecary institutions to create programs um uh can't even fill theirs. Um I I don't have the the final answer for that, but I know that we seek every opportunity to partner with the institutions that do training for these positions um to to make those trainings available to qualified personnel. talking about sums from school year 2022 to 2023 which seems very Okay, thank you. Thank you. Hang on. It says the purpose of this act is to appropriate monies to hire schoolbased youth mental health specialists. Okay. So that's 20.
Is that what you're saying? That's the 20. I'm confused this year. No, the the 20 that they would not be schoolbased. These would be they would service multiple schools. Um yeah, that's also school. Okay. School base would be for the state's public schools. Okay. School base would be our um behavioral health support, our behavior BHS positions. Okay. And that's one for each school you're saying, not 20. That's a different position. Correct. And that's a different The BHS is a different position from the educational psychologist. I'm sorry, but this bill is mental health specialist. I need mental health right now. Anyway, clarify. I'm going to defer this bill because I'm not understanding it. So, please clarify and we'll bring it back. But I need to can you list all the positions you want and how many of each instead of saying to hire school-based youth mental health specialist for the state's public schools with a blank appropriation.
So yes, please. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, moving on. Senate Bill 1045 relating to career and technical education establishes a career and technical education working group to strengthen career and technical education in the state's public schools. Makes an appropriation to testify. Superintendent Hayashi Good afternoon, Senator Kedani, Vice um or Chair, I'm sorry. Good afternoon, Chair Kedani, Vice Chair Marcato Kim, and members of the committee. I'm Heidi Armstrong representing the Department of Education and the department stands on its written testimony. But I'd also like to add that we are supportive of a CT working group that could complement our existing efforts which are described in our testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Um also Corey Rosen Lee on Zoom. Corey, please. Hello Kadani. Uh members of the Senate Education Committee. I'm Corey Rosen Lee, a teacher at Campbell High School. I'm here today to support SB105.
Uh right now, in order to be a CTE concentrator, all you need is uh two credits in CTE. And this is not enough. Uh best country around the world in education is Finland. Best education in United States is in Massachusetts. Both of them allow their students to take half of all of their high school credits in CTE. The goal of this bill would be allowing all the parties, and that's going to be needed in order to accomplish it, to be able to come together to lay out a vision of how we can increase CTE credits in our high schools so that more of our students when they graduated, when they graduate will be prepared for highly skilled, high-paying jobs. Thank you. Thank you, Corey. I believe that's all the testifiers we have. There were com testimony with comments from Stephen Shaws in support I'm sorry with comments for Hawaii P20 and Chris Cfield chairperson of the Democratic Party of Hawaii Education Caucus also in support of this measure.
Members questions. Okay. So, Heidi, we already have a working group. Is that correct? Yes, we do. And I'd like to um um call up Troy Suyoka who who helps lead these working groups. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Troy Suyoka. I am uh the CT specialist for Okay. So uh we do have uh pathway advisory councils that advise on each pathway uh CT pathway for the department and they're made up of industry uh partners uh post-secondary institutions members from the department and a secondary or post-secary administrator. Uh we are also working with the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board to convey to uh convene a work group to discuss uh CTE teacher lensure requirements uh for to attract more uh CTE teachers within our schools. So why go ahead? So why do you need this measure? It's requesting an appropriation. need an appropriation for what? Um, we we can stand on our existing working group in our working group structure.
We don't need this. I'm not sure. Yeah, because this is calling to establish a working group which you already have. Yes. I can't make out the No, it's a Did you guys ask for this bill? Okay, you're off the Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not sure, but um yeah, unless unless you guys need an appropriation something, I'm not sure what wanted because you guys already have over and I thank you for that. I think one of the things that we do need to look at when it comes to the CTE is that um and I think we have to work with the teachers licensing board because right now you guys require all of your instructors to have degrees and so painter or a car body can not have that degree but they teacher teach the kids how to do the job. Um, so I think that's what we need to work on.
Yeah, that so that's what we're working with uh HTSB on creating that working group and getting uh uh hopefully a better license or program. So they they've been amendable to Yes. Yes. Yes. So we're currently working with them. Great. Thank you very much. Okay, moving right along. Senate Bill 154 relating to education requires the Department of Education to develop and implement the school meal subsidy program to provide school lunch subsidies to children whose families do not otherwise qualify for free lunch under the federal free and reduced price lunch program subject to income eligibility rates funds. Superintendent Please. Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, and members of the committee. Curt, deputy superintendent. Department stands on its written testimony in support the measure.
We're here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Osatui HSTA president Lever. Aloha chair and members. Lever Moore speaking on behalf of Osoi Jr. President of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. The Hawaii State Teachers Association support Senate Bill 154 and we stand on our written testimony. Mahalo. Hello. Next to testify, you go cross executive office on early learning. Chair and members of the committee, we stand in support of our test or we stand on our testimony in support and defer to the Department of Education. Thank you. Thank you. Next to testify, Dry Bar told us, executive administrator, State Council on Developmental Disabilities. Hi, Chair Chase over with the Ohio State Council on Developmental Disabilities. Uh, we'd like to stand on our written testimony support, but we just wanted to add that malnutrition has been directly linked to developmental delays as well as can cause long-term disabilities.
So, anything that kind of prevents this, we are in support of. Thank you. Thank you. Next to testify, Nate Hicks for Hawaii Public Health Institute. Law chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Thanks for having me. Uh yeah, Nate Hicks with Hawaii Public Health Institute. Uh stand on our written testimony, but also wanted to just highlight we offer public education for free to all students regardless of income. uh breakfast and lunch are a crucial part of being able to learn and so making sure that these students also have the food necessary regardless of their family's income is also crucially important for the education. Thank you. Thank you. Next to testify Nicole Wu Hawaii Children's Action Network speaks. Aloha chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Um thank you for hearing this bill. I'll stand on our written testimony in support of this bill. Thank you.