Mahalo for listening to my voice. >> Thank you. >> Aloha chair, vice chair, and members of the Senate Committee on Education. My name is Hope Paris and I am a third grade student in Hawaii. Um, learning to read is one of the most important things we do in school. Reading helps us learn about the world and dream about our future. But when students struggle to read and do not get help early, these dreams can start to feel impossible. HB1 1891 helps make sure every child gets the support they need to become a strong reader. Um, please pass HB1891 for the future of Hawaii's kei. Mahalo for listening to our voices. >> Thank you. Just want to let the students know that um my son didn't get diagnosed till about the first or second grade that he was slightly dyslexic and that happened because uh I had a teacher friend who observed him and said that something wasn't right.
Uh in Kendall County, for example, has a transportation alternatives program that funds certain roadways, sidewalk projects, and things of that nature. Um and then there are private grants which would come from foundations, corporations, or nonprofit organizations. And while those private grants will never be able to match the funding power of the federal and state government, we are working to expand our private grant portfolio and capture more of these competitive dollars for the district. Some of the competitive uh and private grants that we've submitted this year, for example, include the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries. We submitted that for six schools. Only title one schools are eligible. Um we submitted an application for the Lake Michigan School Food Innovation Hub Spark grant. Um that's actually a USDA funded grant, but it's through a nonprofit organization. Uh we worked with OPI the um Asiggo Foundation for Educational Excellence to submit a Dunham Foundation grant.
So, we went and had him um had him screened and tested and once I found that out then we were able to help him and today he's an attorney and doing really well. So, I understand exactly what you folks are saying. So, thank you so much for sharing your testimonies with us today. Uh we still have few others uh signed up. Uh Eric uh Nakanishi Stannis Erica. Okay, >> I'll respond to just about anything. Aloha, chair, vice chair, senator Hashimoto. My name is Erica Kakishi Stanis with Hawaii Kids Can. We're here in strong support and ask for your consideration of our suggested amendment. As you've seen, illiteracy comes with a shame that has the opportunity to derail a student's life like any other. They are disproportionately represented in the prison population. And no one says, "Oh, I'm not a reader." Even though we're proud to say we're not math people sometimes.
Um and some smaller ones with Game Time, which is a playground manufacturer and National Parks Trust. And then uh the National Center for Teacher Residencies, which is helping us with some funding for our um teacher residency program. So, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of the district's grants funds come from the federal government, but virtually all of the those federal funds are formula funds that we receive as passed through from the state through ISBY. So, what I've shown you here, this shows the total grant funds that the district has received since FY23 and the projected amount for FY26. Obviously, we're still in the middle of that year. So, that's that's an estimate. Um, the amounts that are shown here for the state refer to grants that are state dollars, not any pass through dollars. So, money that we get from ISBY that originates with the federal government is shown here in the federal column, which is the blue bars.
Um, we appreciate the department's testimony about ongoing work. We note that in late 2024, the DOE received a $60 million federal grant to improve literacy outcomes statewide. Only one-third of schools opted into this work. Pilots are a wonderful thing, but if we're serious about improving literacy outcomes for all students, we need to codify a statewide commitment to best practices and the most coste effective tools with a clear timeline and public accountability. Regarding the exception of the Kaya Puni, we agree and recommend uh language from HP 1784 for reference. Um there's a line in that bill that we believe would serve the purpose. Mahalo for your consideration. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Lauren Faratasi. >> Aloha members of the committee. Uh my name is Lauren Ferasadi. I'm the grandmother of a amazing dyslexic child. you just heard from her. And I've been following dyslexia policy in Hawaii for the last several years.
Um, we're still developing processes for tracking grants from private sources. In the past, historically, um, we know that the schools, some of the schools would would get grants, um, small grants like teachers would apply for things and that would be processed mostly through building activity funds. and we're really working to bring that under one umbrella and get uh basically get a track on that which we have not had historically. So you can see on the FY26 there's a tiny tiny little green bar that represents the private sources. Some of that is because you know those are just there's less dollars out there and less dollars that we are eligible for. Some of it is that we have not fully established those processes yet. And these are the same dollars. I just wanted to kind of display it in a different way. So this table categorizes our grants by their purpose.
I also created a drama group uh called the Lexi Players. And I spend 90 minutes every week with a bunch of dyslexic kids. And what I've learned is that the same kids who struggle to read are often wildly creative, incredibly resilient, and exceptional problem solvers. And the world knows it. NASA knows it. JP Morgan knows it. Microsoft knows it. And Virgin knows it. Those are all companies that actively recruit dyslexic thinkers for their incredible problem-solving skills. HB1891 will assure that these kei get that chance. And that's what's so important to me. Um, it's going to happen through early identification and through explicit teacher training. So, I obviously support this bill. But as a business person, I ask for one addition and that is accountability because without any metrics, we'll be measuring good intentions but not results. We want to prove to you that this works.
So it gives you a better idea of of kind of like how our grant dollars are concentrated. So the first cluster there is our CTE grants. Um the second is our PFA or our early childhood block grant which has always been pretty consistent. We have that one spike um that was in FY24. The state had an additional allocation that has never happened before and we doubt that that will happen again unfortunately. Be really lovely if it did. Um the next smaller grouping is our teacher vacancy grant. The midsize grouping is our ESA, which is our title one, two, three, and and I'm sorry, not three, one, two, and four. So that's the funding for our lowincome students and schools. Uh the largest group there, that is our idea funds. So that's our special education funds. Uh then the the two smaller groups at the end, that's title three, is the second to the last from the right.
On behalf of all these unbelievable kei, I thank you so much for your support. Thank you. See, we had see 31 in support, one comment. That is all that I had that signed up to testify in person or in Zoom. Is there anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? >> Aloha chair, vice chair, and members of the Senate Education Committee. I am Serena Marsen. I've been a teacher in Havi for 24 years. I am the vice president of the reading league kawaii and my most important job I am the mother of two brilliant dyslexic children. I stand by my written testimony and I strongly support HB1891 along with the accountability amendment proposed by Hawaii kids can to ensure this bill truly delivers for our students. Reading changes the ch the a child's life. And when we don't teach children to read early, they don't just fall behind.
And the very last grouping is everything else. So just to give you kind of a picture of, you know, where do these grant dollars go? How are they distributed throughout the district? So this is FY23 through 26. Let's talk a little bit about what we know about what's to come FY27 and beyond. So this this has been an interesting couple years in the grant world. It's a lot of um uncertainty especially at the federal level. So at one point almost all of our grant funding was threatened. We are at a very grateful now that we are at a point where our IDEIDA title one title three that's all restored. Um however at the federal level there is still an effort to dismantle the department of education. um through one of our grantors, our the national c National Center for Teacher Residency, they do a policy update with us monthly and one of the things we've learned through them is that uh in DC they've actually moved the offices of the Department of Education into the Department of Labor because that's the intent is to merge those two entities.
They begin to believe that they are the problem. They feel shame and they disengage from school. I've witnessed this heartbreak in classrooms over two decades. And those students stay with you. This is the weight that educators carry. And we know where this can lead. Many incarcerated adults struggle to read as children. The schoolto prison pipeline often begins with early literacy failure, but this is preventable. We know how to teach children to read using evidence aligned practices and structured literacy. HB1891 is a literacy bill, is a mental health bill, and it is an equity bill. Please pass this bill and ensure it is implemented with accountability. Hava East Kei are counting on all of us. Mahalo. >> Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure?
Um but they still technically are separate separate things right now. Um, and as of this moment, the Department of Education grants, even though they're in the federal budget and they are supposed to be funded, nothing is actually open. None of the discretionary grants. So, there are some discretionary grants historically through the Department of Education and we are really hoping that those will reopen, but as of right now, none of it is. Um, the state fortunately is considerably more stable. Um, one of the big changes this year was that the state created the Department of Early Childhood. And what they did is they took the ISBY early childhood division and the Illinois Department of Human Services early childhood division and they merged those two things together under the Illinois Department of Early Childhood. The funding levels have remained unchanged. They're just, you know, moving people around and changing titles and positions.
Hearing none. Members, we are open for questions. Uh DOE I guess to start with. So currently uh are we screening students for dyslexia? What are we using? um as a entire department, not all of we do have a few schools who are using a screener that does identify um traits associated with dyslexia. Our goal um we we will be piloting um several dyslexia sensitive screeners statewide school year 2627 and um school year 2728 we will have 100% of our elementary schools using a screener um that is dyslexia sensitive. Why has it taken us so long to to do this or what's been the obstacle? We've screened 100% of our students um for I mean I can go back to COVID time starting in COVID but um not >> not all of our screeners do um identify the specific traits through a screening but >> yeah I was going to add Lauren Pedeski administrator at office curriculum and instructional design um so what we're seeing right now is that 16 of our elementary schools right now are assessing between 90 and 100% of their students using a dyslexia sensitive screener.
And on the grant side, they're changing the grant processes. Grant for early childhood is going to be handled on a different platform than all the USB grants. Now, so there's a little bit of a learning curve there. Um, a couple other things from the state CTEI that I mentioned earlier, that's the state component of the uh career and tech teched grants that remains unchanged. That's part of the state's maintenance of effort requirements for the federal Perkins grant. So that typically doesn't really get touched and and it hasn't been. So we expect that to remain stable. The teacher vacancy grant um that one is kind of unknown. We do expect it to sunset this year, but there's been a little bit of talk that it may continue. Um but as of right now, we really just don't know. Um, and then in terms of other grant sources, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to continue to expand our pursuit of non-government grants.
And then another 13 of our schools are assessing between 70 and 89% of their students with that dyslexia sensitive screener. And then pockets of schools that are also using dyslexia sensitive screeners. But what needs to happen is that 100% of our schools are using that, which is why like Deputy Armstrong was sharing, we're going to move into that pilot phase to ensure that by school year 2728, we can guarantee that all of our schools are using something dyslexia sensitive. Um, there are other screeners on the market that screen for broad reading risk, but don't have all of the characteristics we'd like to see. And so the screeners that we pilot are going to have to have all of those characteristics and assessment points. >> What's the cost for this? >> Depends on the screener. >> Um so for example, >> I can do that. >> So um it it varies.
And you know, if as government funding shrinks, competition for all grants increases in this changing challenging landscape, we will seek out alternatives and innovative funding mechanisms to help district meet the demands of the future. >> Thank you.
Um we have some screeners that cost $2 per student, some that cost seven, um some that cost 20, some that cost six. So So there is a range. Um there's also a range in what the screeners do. an addition from just screening doing that initial screening. So we we have to take that all into account when we estimate a a what is the total cost. >> So have you folks looked into dribble dibbles? >> Yes. Um and that's >> isn't that free? >> No. Dibbles is $2 per student. Very inexpensive. So if we did dibbles um statewide it would probably for 46,000 um students it cost about 92,000 a year. Um, and there are other screeners that are also available. >> Okay. A lot less than what it cost us to do kindergarten assessments, I can imagine. Um, you folks also have I Ready intervention from >> We use I Ready.
And do you have any questions? >> Thank you very much. Before you ask questions, uh, one of the reasons why we hire director of grant is because we look at the position as a revenue generator. Uh, since uh, budget situation not just here all over the state for school district gets more challenging and there's a limit to how we can uh, get more revenue. This is one of the ways that we can actually look at more comparative grant foundation grants and non for profit grant where we can use some of those resources to be able to supplement some of the uh the obligations that we have to make sure our kids have uh next educational experience. So I just wanted to point that out. That's the reason why we fill the position and that is what we've been trying to do to generate more revenue through that s questions.
Um, using I Ready as a screener would require an additional add-on. So, we're looking at the cost of that. >> I Ready right now. You use I Ready as an intervention, right? >> Some schools and some schools do. I'm trying to get my handle around a lot of these things where some schools do because many of these areas I think need to be across the board and I know you're trying to leave stuff up to the individual schools but then it makes it in inequitable situation for a lot of students that don't happen to be in those schools. uh the the statement was made that there was a $60 million budget that uh or purchase services that only one-third of the schools opin that that statement was not entirely accurate. And I do think we um have an IOU to you for um the funding and where the funding's gone for the CLSD grant and you can take that information and then make a decision on on what you believe to be >> So do you folks do you folks um audit or or review or do summaries on all of the stuff that is being procured for our students as far as program wise to see what schools are utilizing what percentage of the schools are utilizing it.
>> I I have a question and and thank you. Is is there a central location for all of for that you access in order to find out what grants are available? Um how do we know we're not missing anything? I guess is my ultimate ultimate question. >> Uh at the federal level it's easy because there is a federal website grants.gov but when it comes to um and state grants too state is pretty there there's a website or a couple different there's places to look. Um, in terms of private grants, it there isn't a good single source. It's a lot of, you know, either knowing possible funders or a lot of searching. Um, there are some paid services out there. We do not currently pay for any subscription services or anything of that nature. So, you know, are we missing things? Probably. But you know we we also have to be mindful of our capacity to to write and manage those things as well.