I'm here if you have any questions. Mahalo. Thank you, Stephanie. Becky Ostertag. Yes, aloha. My name is Rebecca Ostertag. I'm from University of Hawaii, Department of Biology. And we have We stand by our written testimony. We've done some preliminary work testing a biocontrol, the nematode biocontrol. And we've had success with it on a relatively small sample size, and this funding would help scale up the research. We've worked on kukui and ulu. For kukui, using the nematode biocontrol, 76% of the trees improved with the biocontrol, and 15 stayed the same, which is also good because they're not getting worse in terms of killing the trees. We've seen death of many of our trees with this. And for ulu, 80% of the trees improved with the biocontrol. So, we have some promising results, and this funding would pay for a full-time worker and a part-time worker to support the research to scale up the methods.
After talking with colleagues in other area districts, that is more of a state level piece. That's Mike's going to talk about 450 hours, not something here at EPS 101 that we're doing in a high school day. Um, but the state really needs to get on board with like the union pieces of this one. We're not there yet. So, we're focusing specifically on our field experience course. >> Awesome. >> Okay, >> Ryan, back to you. >> So, that's a little bit about workbased learning. We'll draw some more connections for you here. Um, but I'm going to circle back to some graphics from three years ago about the college career pathways. So, from our perspective, the work-based learning, college career pathways go hand in hand. Um, but there are some nuances and differences. I believe every student needs exposure to the work-based learning. Not every student will be a fit or is wanting a college career pathway endorsement in the high school.
So, uh I'm quite certain that the it's much more likely to go up in the future than go down. Uh as I told Mrs. Massa, we could have God forbid a depression and things really drop, uh but that's not as likely to happen as things kind of go through the roof. So, we were able to do that uh and it's something that we continue to look at. So, I wanted to share that with the board. Other Our last bit of business wanted [snorts] to talk about was um last month I mentioned our garbage bin wanting to go out to bid. Well, I you know, I I I'm I'm sure they weren't watching, but I said this in the meeting and 2 days later Waste Management reached out to me. They said, "You know, your contract's up." I said, "It is. We're going to be up." And they said, "Would you do an extension?" I said, "Well, we're really looking to contain our costs and I'm pretty sure we're going to want to go out to bid." And they said, "Well, if I put something together, would you at least take a look at it?" I said, "I'd be happy to take a look at it." So, uh they proposed a 3-year extension with us.
And so, I also I want to shout out another fantastic woman, Carla Johnson, who is currently doing what a lot of people don't realize, and that is HR is working in overdrive to find the best and brightest folks to fill the seats in the vacancies here in Lawrence Township. I know this is probably your busiest season, and so just want to express gratitude to you in the work that you were doing. I know that you're out and about across the state. So, thank you. And I know that you're finding the best and the brightest for our kids. And pray Sometimes in Puerto Rico. And if you ever need anybody to go with you there, you got a travel buddy. Just let me know. And prayerfully, there will be a lot of education graduates here coming up in May from all the universities. Yep. So, yeah.
Um but I I definitely appreciate the NASA the impact it's had on the town. Absolutely appreciate that. Um this site is up impacted by the upgradient by no fault of its own by impacted by the upgradient nanza release. um and the client is absolutely going to manage soil and groundwater appropriately in accordance with the Massachusetts contingency plan. So your questions I can completely appreciate and uh you know we can certainly address those questions. I I really can't speak to flood plane issues. I g have to defer to Chris and the engineer. >> I understand. >> Okay. Thank you. Can I I just want to clarify um the information you're looking for is in the the RAM reports we've submitted and and George correct me if I'm wrong if if we were going to construction and within a year from now DP would theoretically approve that correct as it >> that's that's correct that's so >> that's right >> and I don't mean to interrupt but the requirement it's just too far in >> you're going to have to stand up yeah Sorry about that.
It's a low-tech, low-cost solution, but it needs more research to be wrapped up to scale to be able to be available to farmers. And I'm happy to answer questions if if they come up. Thank you. Emma Ross. Steerhoff. I hope I said that correctly. Emma >> Aloha chair, vice chair, members of the committee. My name is Emma Steerhoff. I'm a lead ecological technician at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I'm here to express my strong support of HB 2139, which will allocate funding to essential research that is needed to address the growing threat posed by Queensland Longhorn Beetle or QLB. I stand on my written testimony in support, but I also want to highlight the urgent community need for this research. As QLB spreads across East Hawaii, it has been devastating to farmers who are losing cacao, citrus, avocado, and several other crop plants to these larvae.
That's going to be for subsets of students. Uh, and the two key things we're looking for subsets of students that are ready ready for that type of an experience. And Mike will talk a lot about readiness as well as committed like going for that college career pathway endorsement. You really have to have like this is what I want. This is what I really know I want to do. I want to dig in deeply. Um, so for example, when we launched our education pathway, there were a number of students that their comment to us was like, I've been waiting for these classes. I'm so glad you offered these classes. I always knew I wanted to do this. Thank you for like allowing that structure to come together. So again, work-based learning is for everybody. The college career pathway endorsements are designed for more specific subsets of students.
Um the first year with absolutely no cost increase. And then 6% years 2 and 3. So, it works out to just a hair under 4% annualized. Uh and I think, given the fact that we're paying $44,000 and some change this year for our waste uh garbage service basically, um if we go and bid it out, if somebody were to undercut them, anyone who's responsible would be of an amount less by single-digit thousands. Um I mean, given the fact that we have to go through the process of bidding and put the ad in the paper and pay money for that and whatnot. And we've had really good service from Waste Management. They're pretty mindful of when they send their garbage trucks to our property. We haven't had a whole lot of issues with garbage trucks showing up at pick up or drop off. Um and their billing is also very accurate, which is a big problem we had uh with our last company.
Dr. Mulholland. Speaking of which, I was excited to see the um Lawrence Township will be down at the universities including IU, so that's I hope that all goes well. Very good. Um everyone's shared some wonderful remarks. Um I share all the same sentiments. Just wanted to add um I enjoyed the sixth grade basketball championships on Friday night. Thank you to the Township for supporting that because, you know, a lot of schools some schools have sixth grade in their middle school, so it gives them that really competitive feel and uh they brought it. It was It was a really good game. Um and thank you to the coaches and all the parents. Also, I wanted to um we were able to attend the Bears unfortunate loss. So, now that um secondary basketball's over, um we did have some state champions though in VEX Robotics. So, congratulations to Fall Creek Valley and I'm going to I want to make sure I get it right, but I know it was uh Skiles Tess perhaps or yeah, I'll turn it over to Dr.
No one can hear you online. Yeah. >> Apologize. >> Um just >> just start from the beginning again. >> And and I I think you're aware of this. Um but the D's requirement is that they want the plan submitted as we're closer to construction. And not every single permit has to be issued, you know, prior to submitting the ramp plan, but it needs to be closer to construction. And the rule is it can't be more than a year away, you know. So what they want us to do is resubmit the land ram plan as we get closer to construction. Just so I understand that but we could use our own soil management plan that that would not see we're not D. We're the conservation commission. We live here. >> We don't visit here. We live here. So we have to justify everything that we approve in the areas that we have jurisdiction over.
It has over 20 known hosts in Hawaii. The nematode biocontrol developed by USDA is effective against QLB, as Becky mentioned, but the existing method of injecting the trees is very time-intensive. Community members want to implement this, but don't have the capacity to do so at the necessary scale when dozens of their trees are infected. We're confident that this research will result in well-informed, more time and cost-efficient methods of treatment. This, combined with substantial community buy-in to the biocontrol, will lead to far more effective control of QLB in East Hawaii, reducing damages and helping prevent its spread to other islands. The cost of this research pales in comparison to the losses producers will face to QLB if it's left unaddressed. This research will also reduce the cost of future QLB control given that it will require less manpower. This is a small investment that will greatly benefit the future of Hawaii.
There's some basic requirements under the professional learning that the students have to do. They have to have at least two CTE classes. Those classes have to be dual credit or college credit earning. They have to do at least two team- based challenges, two career exploration activities, and then the last kicker part, 60 hours of service, either supervised, paid, professional, um, component pieces there, which most of us use the term internship for that. Um, that's where our field experience comes in. We that's the term we prefer. So, for our education pathway, that 60 hours was built into the courses we designed. uh and with our partner with Wabanzi. So, it was woven in for all of our future career pathway endorsements. It's really a standalone external thing where they would do the coursework and then they would also go into that field experience. Um, it's also a standalone because one difference from like our programming from Neapville 203s is they'll only do internships or field experience opportunities for students in dedicated pathways versus we still believe there's a need for that for students that aren't necessarily already pathway committed.
Every month we had to spend hours uh sorting out what we really owe them. Uh and Waste Management hasn't had hasn't give us any trouble at all. So, unless the board really advises me against doing so, I would really like to go and extend the contract. So, I'm just looking for some feedback. Just a quick note when Mark and I talked about this the other day, I had mentioned that while the service is phenomenal now and has been it's that which is a great thing, we should still see if we can get a clause in the contract that says if they start failing on some of the the oversight things that they're doing now and start causing us more angst that we would like to have that clause added in the contract that we can that we can um cancel the contract if we feel that they're not meeting our standards.
Pasch Brown. Skiles Tess and Amy Beverlin were teammates in second place in the state and Forest Glenn third and all will be going to Worlds. Yes. So, yes, this is uh this is wonderful news, so we will be well represented at Worlds. And um my last comment is something near and dear to my heart. Uh March is Developmental Disabilities Month. Um we again, our schools do a fantastic job of serving all students and we want to say thank you. Um sometimes you're the extended family we don't have nearby. So, thank you for that. I will move on to Dr. Smith. I'll keep it simple. Madam President and board members, be prepared next month. The army is coming. We will celebrate Lawrence excellence with student recognitions at our next board meeting in April. It will be a packed house as we've done very very well in academics, performing arts, and as well as athletics.
We have to live with the people in this town. And so we have to have evidence that what we're doing >> is safe for the environment. We don't have jurisdiction over of uh public health, but we do have jurisdiction over um environmental health and uh so we need we need specifics to your comments on the RAM report. I've read the RAM report about 10 times and there's not enough information in there for what we need. So there's maybe we'll have to work on offline as to what we do need. >> I'm happy at another time to meet with you individually or respond to your questions, you know, at another time. Absolutely. >> Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Mr. Lucas, did you want to say something or you wanted Yeah. No, I think I think that I think that addresses the comments. >> All right.
I'm happy to answer any questions. Mahalo for your time. Thank you. Hunter Hevlin Not on Zoom, chair. Okay, Layla Shapiro Aloha, Layla. Aloha, my name is Layla Shapiro, and I work under Dr. Austerlitz along with Emma, where my focus is on QLB and the use of nematodes as a biocontrol. I strongly support HB 2139 and stand on my testimony. QLB, as people have said, is a generalist pest known to target and often kill nearly 20 host species. And when injected into trees, the nematodes that we use are able to kill these larvae. This method has been extremely effective, as Becky pointed out. However, this treatment is very time-intensive, which is why it is essential that we invest in research on different treatment methods so it can be scaled up for farmers with hundreds, if not thousands, of trees. This biocontrol offers an opportunity to be proactive about managing QLB populations before it spreads to other islands and causes widespread devastation like we have seen with the coconut rhinoceros beetle.
There's value in them experiencing that opportunity as well. Uh, so that's kind of like that broad background. when we got to that like this is where the link class needs to change. This is where field experience comes in. So I'm going to hand that off to Mike. All right. So field experience really just means a course to cover those 60 hours in any any experience. Um but a course to have those 60 hours. Um the state defines six different types of workplace experiences. Uh, so I'm going to touch on those bottom two. The agricultural experiences and the apprenticeships. Uh, the agricultural experiences are ones that are more for rural areas. Uh, you need an agricultural program in your school. So something that we're not going to focus on. Uh, you never know what could happen in the future, but right now that's not our focus.
On that thank you for mentioning that because I forgot to to say something. That we I did talk with Mrs. Marlene, Mrs. Massaro, and Mr. Burton about this. I also did talk with their attorneys as well. So, if we go and commit and some other company a year from now says we really wanted to bid on your business, we're also going to have a clause in there that we can get out of the contract in 30 days for bidding purposes. So, I really flushed this out with their attorneys over at Franczek to make sure legally we were okay. I knew we we would be one way or the other but I just want to make sure we had the bases covered. With those two clauses in mind, I find them acceptable. I'm good. Okay. Thank you. Is that everything? I have a quick question. Sure.
So, we will celebrate our students next month. I do remind you board that we will be busy on Thursday. We will do a school visit. We will be with the Globetrotters who just won a bunch of hardware. So, we'll be there Thursday morning visiting during our tour of Mary Castle Elementary. Yes. Thank you. We are looking forward to that. Enjoy our school visits. Our next monthly board meeting will be April 27th here at 6:30 sharp starting with the student recognitions and it will be a combined work session and board meeting as we have a lot going on. Um we'll be traveling as a board for the National School Board Association as well in early April. So, enjoy your spring break as well. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Properly moved, Ms. Puckett, and seconded, Dr. Mulholland. Thank you, everyone. I have to go by Somebody said
so far. Okay, I'll entertain any questions from the commission so far >> on the project or >> on the project on what's been presented, the uh overview of the um the narrative for the for the project, the notice of intent because we're sort of at the high level, right? So, >> and we do have a site visit scheduled for this Saturday. >> Yeah. One thing that I would like to see is um looking at the plans there, there's nothing that shows a cross-section of the site. So, I see buildings. I see a some sort of a courtyard area in between the buildings. I don't know what the ground is. Is that the ground or is that a a a floor? Is there parking under it? I mean, I don't know where the parking is because these plans don't show it. >> We have architectural plans.