001good afternoon and welcome to the senate committee on education today is monday april 25th and it's about 1 37 p.m we are in hearing room 225 this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you'll find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on live and on-demand video page of the legislature's website the zoo meeting and youtube live stream will include the 1 30 pm agenda for the committee on education and as vice chair i am chairing the meeting due to unforeseen circumstances our education chair may be here later and then like the event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on tuesday april 26 at 3 00 pm in room 229
002and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website david i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for people participating remotely please remain needed and the video disabled until shortly before it's your turn to testify when i call your name unmute yourself and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move on and move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner so with that we would like to uh introduce the members of the education committee senator drew kanuha and i understand senator favela will shortly be here as well starting with the first item on the agenda is hcr 7hd1 urging
003the hilo high school community council to recommend the hilo high school gym be named after albert and lawrence maglin lewis how do you say that since it's your area man ligous meddling yes okay oh let's see and lester yes yes yes mr seto please proceed you have a testimony thank you good afternoon honourable senators of the education committee thank you for the opportunity to speak in favor of hcr7 my name is lester sado currently a resident of waikoloa in on hawaii island but i was born and raised in hilo graduate at appito high school i am one of many supporters who are urging the hilo high school community council to please name the relatively new hilo high school gym in honor of coaches and brothers al and larry min lingus there are many reasons for
004this which are found in the testimony and i know i just have already you know less than half a minute so if you would go over those please that would be uh very important may i just add a little personal um information there is because coach uh larry manling was died in 2007 at the early age of 65 while still in the position of head coach and because coach allman lingus his brother is 92 years and many say they'd like to honor him while he is still living we urge the senate to please pass hcr 7 because your endorsement will help greatly to influence the hilo high school community council to recommend that the name of their gym uh be given in honor to the milingus brothers so thank you very much for considering our
005our testimony thank you very much um there is no one else here testifying for this measure so is there any questions i i do have one question so at this point mr seto is it that the um high school um council does not want to name it i would say they are uh those who are not in favor we don't we don't have a feel as to whether the majority are for it or against it so we don't know that's why we really feel the um the need to get as many supporters as we can yes is there other names that are being circulated they are yes they're yes there are other names there is the the a volleyball coach of the women's team who has won two state championships uh but her tenure is
006not as long as the 50 years uh consecutive years of the melinda's brothers and some want to name the gym after the legendary coach afuc his name would certainly be the prominent one for the new gym but coach afuck already has his name on the hilo civic auditorium the hilo civic auditorium is called the uh chinen afuk civic auditorium and that venue is of course much more prominent and bigger than the gila high school gym those are the only two names i've heard so far i guess my concern is that we're inserting ourselves into a process not knowing all the other names and then and you know trying to pick one over the other or like you said influence um the group and picking when i don't know that we on in the in the
007committee uh even looked at all of the names and then choosing one over the other i'm sure there's um others that might want to um ask that you know it'd be named after one of the others and the fact that the testimony only receiving your testimony at this point um raises some concern so i don't know if the senator of the district had anything to add i'm on the other side of the island [Music] okay we may want to ask the senator from that district to um to weigh in on this so i hope you can understand that i can understand it yeah yeah okay thank you very much we will move on to to the next item um next hcr 51 house draft one requesting the department of education to prioritize funding for air
008conditioning in schools on hawaii island that are regularly affected by vog testifying is keith hayashi for hawaii state d.o.e randall tanaka are you here yes welcome randall hello senator uh members of the committee thank you very much for your time today um yes we in fact have prioritized since the volcanic eruption a few years ago last year we introduced [Music] more air filters to help mitigate not only the covet situation but generally we knew that uh vog was was will be an ongoing issue we have introduced 594 air purifiers in all the rooms uh classrooms uh in the keaau and honokaa and hilo complexes we continue to move forward in other mitigation issues such as air conditioning units with filters so we continue to progress with the focus on that area because of bulk we
009support the measure okay thank you uh we have damien chang individual in support and no other justifiers and i forgot to say if there's anyone here wishing to testify in the measures oh please come forward or on zoom hearing on any questions hearing no questions we will move on to the next item on the agenda and that's hcr 74. this is urging the board of education to rename the castle beach the castle high school football field after former representative ken ito and we have ron han in support and he is not available no one else to ask questions for so we will move on we are on house concurrent resolutions 56 house draft one requesting department of education to implement a filipino history culture and identity social studies course for high school students we have
010a number of justifiers uh keith hayashi interim superintendent teri ushijima are you here oh there it is in person welcome good afternoon good afternoon chair and members a member of the committee raymond fujino on behalf of interim superintendent keith hayashi the department will stand on its written testimony offering comments okay and basically can you just share what that just of the comments is i'm going to call up our social studies specialist roseanne fukuda okay who has more extensive knowledge um nice math by the way yep motorbike chair and member of the community can you speculate hawaii department of education yes thank you yes just a gist of what you're you're supporting your non-support i know you said comments so yes would you like to explain to the public did you have i'm sorry yeah do
011you want to explain to the public your testimony are you in support are you opposed we're offering comments yes is what's the gist of your we're saying that there are mechanisms in place for any school um in the state to create such a course and that we even have something called directed studies that can certainly be used by any school in the state that wishes to make um detailed study um of such a course so um that this measure is not needed at this time because we have those mechanisms in place should a school want to to create such a course maybe we would entertain that okay but this is a resolution so you're you're not required to do so but it is requesting it if in fact they're able to so the mechanisms in
012place would be for an elective course yes should a school um put that forth we do have procedures um for schools to be able to create courses okay any questions has a school ever gone through that action i'm sorry has the school ever gone through that action that process uh they have not in this particular um course but schools yes they take advantage of that and create courses yes signature okay thank you okay uh next um testifying is amy agmayani justifying for why friends of civil rights thank you very much for this opportunity to testify in strong support of this resolution we believe that it will benefit filipino students as well as students who are not a filipino heritage learn about hawaii and us history and we appreciate the department of education identifying the fact
013that there are mechanisms to do this and we will hopefully encourage people to use these mechanisms but obviously it hasn't been used for this area and so i think this resolution requesting them to pay attention to the largest ethnic group in the public schools is appropriate okay thank you we have patricia palagal welcome patricia aloha thank you vice chair mercado kim and senator kanuha my name is patricia halagao and i'm a professor at the uh college of education testifying on behalf of the teen alex filipino education council you may read our full testimony online in support of the resolution research backing curriculum that reflects the community we serve but what i'm here for really is more to listen to the students who you'll hear expressing that they feel invisible in their education and a call
014for an education that reflects them their story is like many of us who did not learn about our history culture and identities until we went to college but what's so exciting is that these students are actually doing something about this and taking education into their own hands so i want to list up the filipino curriculum project they're a group of diverse team of public and private high school students immigrant local born mix who are designing the kind of curriculum that they want to learn in school and i'm so proud of them um for doing what they're doing and opening the doors for other underrepresented groups these are our future teachers and so i appreciate the wide support community and multi-ethnic support of the resolution and thank you for your time okay thank you very much
015remark below ubilotti okay welcome [Music] good afternoon to all thank you for allowing me to testify my name is raymar biote i am i'm a recent graduate from waipa high school i am testifying on behalf of the filipino curriculum project a public and private school collaboration that advocates for filipino representation and our high school education we strongly support this resolution so that the next generation of filipinos in hawaii will grow up seeing themselves in school and that they will grow up recognizing the history and culture of the philippines that most social studies curricula have long overlooked and we believe that representation does matter the whole filipino curriculum project team also hopes that this resolution will open the door for philippine representation and other ethnic um groups on the island such as samoa tonga portuguese hawaii
016and many more as a brother i support this resolution because i want my younger sister and the next generation to grow up in a community where seen and valued as a secondary education major i support this resolution because i know that education can make students feel seen and worthy and that education should be one of those endless gateways to making every individual proud of their own ethnic identity and again thank you for madame for giving me this opportunity to testify thank you thank you [Music] caitlin agnes hello you caitlyn welcome caitlin um so hello my name is caitlin j nagness i'm a recent graduate from cal poly high school and one of the members of the filipino curriculum project that i'm here to testify for and as a second generation immigrant from the philippines i
017didn't grow up learning my family's language or knowing the country's history at all for these reasons i felt lost saying that i'm filipino american when i got to high school i didn't i realized that there's so many other people who feel the same way as i do and it's shocking to see that i joined this project because i don't watch because because i don't want future generations of filipinos in hawaii to feel the same way as i do supporting this bill will also benefit those who aren't filipino because the philippines culture includes vast similarities with other ethnicities like the polynesian islands this curriculum will allow every student who chooses to take this class to embrace their culture and self-identity as a group we already received a lot of support from the doe by connecting with
018other education leaders and talking to various communities in hawaii we hope to gain your support as well thank you for listening thank you charlene hello thank you for the opportunity can you hear me yes um thank you for the opportunity to testify here um in strong support of this resolution on requesting that the department of education implement a filipino and history culture and identity um social studies course for high school students my name is charlene blumenlag and um i'm testifying as an individual um i do not represent the university however um i have i i teach at the university level and have actually taught filipinos in hawaii a credit bearing course offered through the ethnic studies department at the university of hawaii in prior years and among my enrolled students over several semesters were undergrads
019from filipino backgrounds part and full as well as non-filipino backgrounds some were um from the continent but many were actually schooled in hawaii in the public school system and the private school system and i mean strong support here for this resolution because the significant impact is that it will be offered at the high school level rather than having students wait for university where many actually do not have the opportunity to continue on to so i just want to establish trunk support with the students here for this resolution thank you for the opportunity thank you charlene our next testifier is agnes molati agnes thank you vice chair marcato kim secretary and senator favela i am a product of the public school system i came here to the united states to hawaii um on the ship so
020technically i was i'm fresh off the boat and i was part of that i was i grew up in a time when it was very contentious to be an immigrant and there was great divide between the locals and the immigrants in my ninth grade year at waipahu high school i took an ethnic studies class and we read about quindaly o'conne's story and that changed my perspective as to how i view the world and how i viewed myself in it i was always yearning for information for stories about filipinos but that was so lacking and so i'm really in strong support of this resolution i feel a stronger ethnic pride and identity i will empower our youth to positively contribute to their communities i direct the health careers opportunity program at the university of hawaii manoa
021there are many students who have come through there for filipinos hawaiians and others from underrepresented groups and it's just so encouraging and so um inspiring to see when we talk about when they talk about their culture and they talk about their um background that they light up when they feel that their culture is valued the healthcare's opportunity program works with high school to college students thank you agnes appreciate your testimony leonard forrendo president testifying for surrender youth council and then we have about 18 others in support individuals in support and one with comments is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure either by zoom or in person uh hearing none members were open for questions and the two of you sitting in the background is just um you know it's very exciting to
022hear that um you know i went to this event um last night saturday night and it was for the filipino women was a ball on their achievements and their accomplishments when being here as women and leaders in our state the only reason why saying this is because i'm i'm not filipino filipino nephews and family members but every time it's my second time because of pandemic they didn't have it second time going to this event and there's one thing that i can tell you right now is not loss is their culture especially when it comes to these women leaders this event is held and just beautiful dresses and you know i finally got myself a barong you know and looking at the festivities and the reason why i share this is because when i went home
023and to let's let you guys know i keep turn runner up for boron contest just to let you know thank you thank you but the reason why i see this the sadness that i feel as a hawaiian as a portuguese and japanese i i see the culture of of the filipino culture strong i understand they want to do the language in the schools and i think that is great but there's one thing that i can tell you when i listen to some of these kids i don't know if they ever been there so i even told my staff and even some of my hawaiian family if they ever get somebody that offered them to go to this ball they should go because it's well put on well organized and they love to dance love to
024love to dance and i feel so proud to be there you know i mean i'm not a filipino but i feel proud to be a part of something that they kept their heritage so strong and then at the same time i feel sad for myself and for my heritage as a hawaiian that even though we see everything about hawaii but we don't have that cultural gathering like the filipinos did uh that night so i'm glad that these kids stepping forward and everybody's coming forward but you know out there in in uh uh facebook lab he was his zooland or whatever you call it we got to get together as all of the people of hawaii too exactly what that one guy said he's a brother and he wants his sister to know all these things
025i like what he said because he didn't say and i'm proud because he said couple of my races portuguese and hawaiian so i was very happy that he said that but going forward we need to have the doe uh uh specify the actual needs in our multicultural we cannot keep thinking inland style teaching mainland ways uh uh you know i'm sorry corn i remember i might have a test about how much corn anyone would train across the street and whatever county i never know nothing about corn in elementary and the only train i knew was the train that never moved i mean ever so those are the things that we gotta really like like they said they're gonna centralize teaching for the people in hawaii off the mainland style because that's not going to help
026us any here but i'm proud and like i said i'm proud to go to the event and i'm happy for these kids i think they're doing a great job and um you know you know that i'm going to be pushing for other other cultures too it's it's awesome thank you thank you um thank you take your chair thank you senator fabella i certainly can't understand that because growing up i was the only um korean filipino student in my school it seemed i shouldn't say i was the only one but certainly lacked first i was kind of embarrassed to say i was filipino because you know they had all these stereotypes about filipinos and then there was nothing about koreans and there's still nothing i think that is being taught in the schools about the korean
027culture as well and so it took me to become an adult to understand all of that um but i just want to also make a point that you know we are multicultural and and our schools should reflect that in the curriculum or in the electeds as well so i think that all of the ethnic groups uh that contributed to who we are today should be there so hopefully uh this is just one of many as um to directing um doe that we're not trying to tell you what to teach but that you folks look at that and look at how we can become more diverse in in our curriculum so if there are no other questions just reading the um [Music] is this going to be just specified for farrington and like paul oh yeah
028no because you know i have a beach area not and again you know each and as it was stated by each school uh they do look at what they're gonna offer and um you know those are things i i'm sure a lot of thought go into it before they put it part of the curriculum um so with that we will go into the decision making took a restart reset to call the education committee back to order we are in decision making the recommendations will be to pass hcr7 urging the hilo high school community i'm sorry we're going to be deferring hcr 7 at this point again the committee feels that this is an issue that should be dealt with at that level we don't know all the candidates it's hard to take a stance for
029one family versus the other family at this point so the recommendation is to defer is there any discussion hearing none okay uh h c r 51 this is requesting department of education to prioritize funding for air conditioning schools on the hawaii island that are regularly affected a recommendation is to pass as is is there any discussion members hearing none if uh senator kanoa would take the vote recommendations to pass pass hcr 51 unamended cherokee dhani is excused vice chair kim hi senator de la cruz is excuse i vote eye senator favela all right three eyes recommendations adopted thank you for helping current resolution 74 this is urging the board of it to rename castle high school after former representative ito again i uh a very good friends with senator representative ito and uh i feel
030he's very meritorious however the recommendation is to defer this measure again it is the naming and that's something that i think needs to be further uh is there any discussion on that hearing none so ordered uh hcr 56 house draft one requesting the department of education to implement a filipino history culture and identity social studies course for high school students recommendation is to pass as is is there any discussion hearing none again doe if you will just take a look at all of the cultures that we appreciate that um so with that uh chair of woodside of three members president any with reservations indian opposition recommendations adopted okay thank you and members we are on our deferred agenda from april 13th and this is advise and consent on several gm's gm this is for consideration
031confirmation the early learning board and also um the board of educate okay let's take it uh i'm going to take it all in one motion so gm 784 gm 801 gm 804 gm 802 gm 803 and gm 805 and again these are for the board of education as well as the early learning board is there any discussion numbers hearing none recommendation is to advise and consent shares recommendation on on said gm's are to advise and consent outside shareholder spy senator kidani is excused senator dela cruz's excuse i vote i senator favela bye share recommendations adopted okay with that that's the end of our agenda we are