001thank you welcome to the senate committee on education today is monday april 11 at 3 o'clock p.m we are in hearing room 229 this meeting including the audience video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you will find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislature's website this soon meeting and youtube live stream event will include this three o'clock pm agenda for the committee on education in the unlikely event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on wednesday april 13 2022 at 3 pm in this room and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers
002that 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 muted and video disabled until shortly before it is 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 this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner thank you okay first on our agenda is is a gm815 however we are deferring this measure [Music] for this nominee just immune just for this time period to end that expires june 30 2022 however we are hearing gm 816 um which is for justin new for the hawaii teacher standards boards for a turn to expire 6 30 20 26 and to testify on
003gm 816 we have no testimony is just a new present please oh hi justin please have a habit of looking at the screen because that's all we've had for a long time how pleasant to have people in the room yes thank you thank you so much for joining us justin i think in your response you um to the committee you noted the ongoing shortage of licensed teachers in our doe classrooms and i wanted your opinion on how you see um hawaii teacher standard boards standards boards work contributing towards closing this gap well certainly we would have to make sure that the uh in spite of the gap in spite of the shortage that we don't bend rules because it's important for us to always have a highly qualified licensed teacher in every classroom students deserve
004that and we must maintain that for the public confidence in our education system and how do you plan on using your next term to to address this issue tristan what i need to do is to be kept up to speed is what it is because um i was on the board for a number of years and i needed to sit out one term at that time and that's by statute so i was not able to be a part of board uh business so uh we need to be kept up to speed by the board chair uh on this and to see if the you know the plan action plan to see what needs to be done and i want to be a part of that plan thank you for that justin you did mention in
005your um questionnaire that there were some what you called you felt was unfinished business and which is one of the reasons you want to return to help address these issues so you talk about that the htsb staff including executive director works for htsb but not vice versa this has implications for contested hearings could you explain that please sure uh what am i i was put into the role in the last terms to uh sit on the it's called a hearings panel of the htsb and i was always elected as the hearings officer so what's important to know is that there's a separation of duties in terms of the htsb staff and the htsb lucid award which uh i had set on and which i'd like to continue to sit on so uh we we make
006decisions uh we hire actually we do hire the uh the the the staff you know so that's why there's a separation of duties uh why i put down uh i'm sorry as i was leaving the board chair uh asked me and the tim asked me to help with the hearings in terms of uh documenting the work that we did so we did work with our attorney general deputy to make sure that what we do follows the protocols uh set aside under the hawaii administrative rules so we made a document to say uh this is what we do and how we conduct business why did i say unfinished business is because i was i did go on the website and i looked at the education preparation uh so uh programs so that's part of the question
007of senator kidani of the last question about how we're gonna make sure that we have more teachers available is to look at the educator preparation programs so we have to make sure that they follow the rules in terms of being accredited so that they can be considered a viable uh uh program now what i saw was a red a red uh indication for one of the uh programs called uh i think it's called moorland and it was read that they were de-uh decertified by the board so there's got to be some unfinished business there that is uh that needs to be attended to so i am really um to follow the protocols it's very important the national standards uh for uh for both education educator preparation programs as well as for the licensing to follow
008exactly what we have there again is to maintain the integrity of what we do so we're not going to just be signing off as much as making sure that the programs meet the standards as well as the teachers that are being licensed need to stand this relationship thank you for that explanation justin and you uh pointed out another concern and i hope that if you are confirmed you will get back to this committee with maybe uh an answer to this one you said there remains a shortage of licensed classroom teachers this is in spite of htsb issuing licenses to hundreds of teachers each month where are these teachers going so you don't have to answer now but i think that's a question that we all are asking ourselves too are you okay thank you thank
009you very much members questions for justin you if not thank you very much thank you church next on our agenda is gm783 submitting for con consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee benjamin notty the third or term to expire 6 30 20 25 is benjamin here please [Applause] good afternoon did you have an opening statement that you'd like to make benjamin keys um sure i'll i'll be very brief um i've been serving on the early learning board in different capacities most recently as the head start provider rep and before that the um home visitor rep so i think this is an opportunity to me to extend and and um you know contribute to the early learning board as they're moving forward with um coordinating a early childhood network in hawaii so looking
010forward to if i'm confirmed another couple of years two or three years i believe so thank you for that um we have robert peters on zoom to testify and support robert please thank you chair kadani and members of the committee and vice chair kim on the early learning board offers testimony and strong support of benjamin nakey iii continuing to serve as the head start provider representative on the early learning board thank you for the opportunity to sort support ben's application thank you and also colleen momohara colleen here also in support um ben i i um appreciate your willingness to serve and i know that you're currently serving so um in your your response you know that eoel implementation plans should be grounded in at least one of the five goals in the early childhood state
011plan and for those listening in the elb was established as a governing board through act 202 session laws of hawaii 2017 and is responsible for directing the executive office of early learning on how best to meet the developmental and educational needs of children from prenatal care to entry into kindergarten providing recommendations to eoel on improving the quality availability and coordination of early learning programs promoting collaboration across agencies and stakeholders serving young children and appointing and evaluating the eoel director on an annual basis so of the five goals um you are advocating for talk about investing in expanded home distribution for families with newborns contribute to health and health implement collaborate plan from the county to the state level to coordinate resources and services and simplify access for families invest invest in expanding public pre-k and
012increasing capacity in the full range of early care and education settings be a part of a broader group of stakeholders creating new models that increase compensation and support for early childhood workforce invest in data tools and infrastructure and help gather and share data to inform statewide efforts for our children's our children and families do you know if our eoel board is actively working on any of these goals now yeah there's different um yeah actually the early learning board has several committees that kind of oversee the different components of the um early childhood network that uh they're trying to coordinate but uel also um i believe is you know doing a lot of good work around gathering data uh meeting with different partners um there's a lot of people doing the work that's why so it's
013the effort is is bringing them all to the table um to figure out what would best suit um the different communities we have here in hawaii so they are doing the work thank you for that also um then [Music] you know that you believe the elb has the right composition and the ill elb chair has repeatedly told this committee that elv will be taking up board composition in the next year so some of the questions asked previously is that um what about the neighbor island represent representatives is that something that we should look at but recognizing that already it's a very very large board yeah 17 members yeah which does make it difficult um so your ideas there yeah i i think the conversation has you know been throughout the years of how large our
014our board is but also the neighbor island representation is much needed i think right now there's um from the county of mary's i think there's two two board members um when we have four counties so you know um we'd like more representation from the other islands outside of oahu i think just uh there's a limitation right now with the the current statute as far as um of who can serve as part of those two um neighbor island positions but you know the other way is also we head start is all on the other different islands so fortunately you know we provide service i'm a head start provider rep and i provide service we provide services on oahu uh hawaii island and my fellow colleagues also provide services on the other islands so you know i
015have a responsibility also to share um what's happening on the other islands in regards to early head start and head start i can bring some of that voice to the early learning board and uel also i believe that um we still have not hired the um executive director for eo and how is that search going i believe for a while yeah i believe an offer was made if i'm not mistaken um so i think it's nearing i don't know the details we do have a meeting this this week so we'll probably get more information at our next early learning board meeting but i believe uh selection was made just not sure what the um the outcome was of that selection thank you for that then members any further questions thank you ben next on the
016agenda we have gm 566 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee kaiolani returned to expire 6 30 and i will take that together with gm uh for the same person for trying to expire 6 30 24 is kaiolani here aloha i'm here online just wanted to know to testify we do have bob peters on zoom good afternoon again sharokina and vice chair kim members of the committee thank you for this opportunity to provide supportive testimony strong support for kaiolani leiha's continuation as an early learning board member she is ideally suited to and qualified for the hawaiian language medium provider seat on the board has already made distinctive contributions in our conversations and deliberations to date we strongly urge her continuation thank you thank you bob would you like to make
017an opening statement please members of the committee thank you for um allowing me this opportunity to seek confirmation to continue working on the early learning board um it's been a really um great opportunity for me to be involved in the conversations um you folks know that the word is comprised of a significant amount of um [Music] experts in early learning um so it's it's been a real pleasure to be able to serve with them to learn from them and also contribute when possible um i have been participating in the meetings as a board member for a little over half of a year now um and prior to that um i kind of just listened in as a community member to try my best to keep up with what was going on in the early learning
018community so thank you so kayolani what goals do you have to see that the executive office on early learning uh achieve whatever their goals are um i you know i think that the one of the most pressing things is that director seat um being filled um and and making sure that we can [Music] support that director in their new role and kind of get them a lay of the land on um seeking new kind of partnerships collaborative efforts making sure that the eoel staff continues to seek i guess access for or consider all the different types of providers that we have so i think that that would be a goal of mine is just really to make sure that director position is settled um and and that we can get off on a good start
019with that individual thank you and also while you are being appointed to represent the hawaii medium early learning providers the board's responsibilities extend from prenatal to entry into kindergarten as a board member how will you ensure that eoel meets its statutory obligations to create an early learning system that is widely accessible and voluntary for both those served and programmed and service providers that is cohesive comprehensive and sustainable that provides high quality early learning experiences that offers opportunities for family and community engagement and parent education and support and also is sensitive to family choice and cultural diversity mahalo for that question um my experience at ahaupunanaleo i think has really helped me to build a better understanding of not just what our programs do and who they're marketed towards which is typically infant through kindergarten ready
020and that's through a child's care center but the hme pathway is representative of all families that choose hawaiian language for for their um [Music] for their children so you know that includes our staff members our program alumni our community partners who who choose hawaiian language for their keiki and they're going to face the same decisions that every other parent faces will their children attend the child care center will they stay at home with their grandparents will they take off from work and stay home with their children um so i in in response to this question it really made me reflect on what it means to be that high medium seat and it is extensive it is not just you know particular to a certain site or a certain preschool program that is done in hawaiian
021language but it's really in representation of all hawaiian language speaking ohana thank you my final question is do you anticipate being able to objectively promote this mission even if it negatively impacts or does not prioritize hawaiian medium early learning providers i i will be able to objectively promote the mission of elb um i think that part of the state plan um actually calls out and and what we went over earlier actually calls out the need for that sensitivity toward um an access to hawaiian language programs i think that they're not i think that they are mutually inclusive and also carrying out the elb mission would be serving the hme early learning providers well um so i do think that i could do that [Music] thank you for those thoughtful answers members are there further questions
022for you honey thank you very much moving on our next item is gm 757 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee megan mccordeson for trying to expire 6 30 to testify shannon alivardo [Music] good afternoon check donnie vice chair kim senators canoe and favela thank you for this opportunity to support megan dr mccarson to the early learning board um megan as i know her will bring a big voice i think from the early learning community especially from those serving in the two to five year old range and with siegel schools as executive director and ceo of sibo schools serving children in honolulu from the west side to the windward side her practical experience will add voice to the early learning board and i think megan would be ideal for this
023position i think all of us have have been challenged by the pandemic but i think within this area um serving children our most precious children in their in their developing years from zero to five two to five she has shown that her representation of the children and families has been optimal and always in their best interests and we at siegel schools are proud of her accomplishments especially given that we have not necessarily shut down our schools to parents within most of the time so with that i ask for your support of this gm 757 of dr mccourston thank you for this opportunity thank you shannon also to testify we have robert peters testifying for the early learning board thank you chair kadani um i've known megan mccarson for about 10 years as both the executive
024director of ho kakou and now in a role as ceo of seagull schools not only will she bring the voice of center-based providers an important voice in our early learning community but she will also bring the vantage point in the perspective of someone who has served both in the public and the private sectors both of which we need to fulfill the um early childhood learning opportunities for our keiki so we offer strong support for the acceptance of megan mccorston to serve as a new early learning board member thank you thank you bob was there anyone else here who wants to testify on behalf of this nominee if not megan please would you like to provide some opening remarks sure aloha chair kidani and vice chair kim and the members of the senate education committee the
025last two years of the pandemic have put my leadership experience in both public and private education into stark perspective as the chief executive officer of siegel schools one of hawaii's largest center based child care providers i have witnessed firsthand the effect of school closures and due to the pandemic on the children and families in hawaii a lack of early education exacerbates the existing disparities in health and education especially for the most vulnerable in our community my belief in access to a high quality early education for all students is what compelled me to apply for the center-based child care seat on the early learning board i hope that my 20 years of experience in public and private education locally and internationally will help the eol meet its strategic goals and objectives it would be my honor
026to serve the community in this capacity mahalo for your time thank you megan while you are being appointed to represent center-based programs the board's responsibilities extend from prenatal to entry into kindergarten as a member how will you ensure that eoel meets its statutory obligations to create an early learning system that is widely accessible and voluntary for both those served and programmed and service providers well i think um you know as a new board member i think the collaborative approach to this strategic goal is really critical because it's going to take a lot of community partners public and private sector i think to increase access most importantly and within access i think that's a very broad definition it requires you know we know there are a shortage of child care spaces for and care for zero
027to five-year-old children so we not only need to increase access in terms of programming but the facilities and the workforce development critically because i think right now as i as i've referenced the pandemic has really exacerbated the shortage of qualified high quality workforce and those would be my focuses without knowing you know too much about what's already been discussed in meetings uh that would sort of be my focus leading into this but how would you ensure that as a board member eol meets these goals well i'd you know again be working collaboratively collaboratively with everybody to ensure that um their targets are being met um in terms of um they're pretty sound pretty ambitious to open new schools and and i hope there's a focus on rural areas and those that are hardest to reach
028in our in our vulnerable communities how do you foresee yourself meeting the statutory obligations as a board member to direct the office on how best to meet the developmental and educational needs of children from prenatal care to entry into kindergarten and to provide recommendations to the office on improving the quality availability coordination of being real so again i would just look at you know not only the quantity but the quality of programming out there available and making sure that we are meeting those targets and doing everything we can to increase the number of children and families that are served throughout the state not just here on this island what resources do you believe eoel needs to accomplish their mission right well the biggest challenges i see uh facing us right now is the provision of
029high quality free early education and prenatal services um and so the accessibility the affordability there are issues with facilities as well and most critically workforce development issues that i think we have a long way to go before we resolve those issues and i really am keen to collaborate with other community partners and higher education institutes to ensure that we're developing our workforce capacity in all of those age groups because i think we're really lacking and we're headed for much like other industries that are essential to the community we're headed for a disaster unless we really look at how to develop the workforce in this area and make it attractive for people trying to work in this workforce thank you for that members are there any further questions thank you so much for you know for
030being here mahalo for the opportunity thank you all right moving on to our final item on the agenda gm 689 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee may o for a term to expire 6 30 2024 to testify bob peters please thank you chair kadani may or would be a new member of the early learning board she has a strong professional background in early childhood um and family resources her current position with the family who he really focuses on that portion of the community her seat represents the parent community really working to engage families to meet their needs and to respect them as their children's first teachers the early learning board strongly supports may's application for appointment to the early learning board thank you bob tracy garma tracy with us
031i.t is tracy there not present chair thank you her testimony was in support is may present support please would you like to make some opening remarks good afternoon senators good afternoon um chair peters and everyone in the room i wanted to thank you for the considerations for being the parent representative for the for the early learning board i'm very passionate in the early learning field and myself have a really young child that i i i'm learning as i parent and and i'm really excited for this opportunity to be and serve the communities and to bring the best to our children thank you for that in your written response to our committee you stated that expansion of available public pre-k programs should be a priority for the executive office of early learning what goals do you
032want to see eoel achieve i'm very excited to have that um to know that eoel is working towards the public pre-k programs and i personally know a lot of families and being on in the field uh working hand-in-hand with a lot of families knowing that a lot of families are having hard times uh trying to find the the perfect you know the perfect um pre-k programs for to meet their child's needs so it's very excited to to see and in support with with particular goals so how would you foresee eleanor meeting these goals so um a saying has come has introduced to me um if you look at the house from just one window you see just one side of the house if you look at a house from multiple windows you can see multiple
033perspective of the house but if you go into the house you can feel and connect and and and support and really feel what the real the house is so i think that when i saw um the goal well i saw this goal that was the first thing that comes to my head is when with the board positions that's what we need is to feel to know to see the needs of the families and to work from there on to really to really feel the needs in the community and the goal is to feel the needs of the community to move forward with that is um we we should open and be and and get um and and understand and we communicate with the community to see where the family's needs are and move forward from
034there on i like your perspective because the eoel house has many many winners um i wanted to ask i'm not sure i asked anybody else but i think there was some concern that there's not enough representation from the neighbor islands and do you feel that there needs to be someone that can represent neighbor islands on the board also i think um having a representative from each of the area is is ideal um i think what we need to do is to to see to take a look at this the strategic priority of what we want to do and see what we have and see what we need and then recruit from there on and they already have a board membership of 17 which i feel is too large and very difficult to accomplish goals and
035get get the board members on a track that they all agree on so i'm not sure how bob you have your your work cut out for you um final question why do you believe that the parent perspective is a valuable one to have as a board member i myself as a parent having having someone and something there for me knowing the needs for my child and meeting the needs of my child and understanding where myself coming from as a parent i think is important um there could be services out there but if it doesn't meet the needs of me as a parent i won't go to that services right so i think it's important as a we understand the needs of the parents provide that service that meets the needs of the parents and the
036children and overall as a family and every family is different and then learning the differences amongst every families will give us opportunity to to serve and and and to meet the needs when the parents get their needs met that's a huge foundation for us and the children to build forward our future thank you for that members are there any further questions for miss old thank you i know i've been asked the question but do you think that early education should substitute for what the parents should be um doing with the education for their child age and do you think that sometimes parents will utilize early education as a way of substituting so that they can do other things and be free from having to actually provide some of that kind of learning that should come
037from the family unit it depends on each family's compositions right some family really needs um the early education because their goal for example myself as when i first moved here years ago my first thing my mom told me is that get a good education and build your future so for my mom it's very important for her to see me succeed and and move forward with a good education now i have other friends or other people who have similar situation where you know i need child care so that i could contribute i need child care so i could contribute to the society i need child i need someone to provide care for my child that perfect care um that that that support supportive care so that i could contribute to the society so i can cut
038contribute to the workforce and and and and from there on okay so it depends on each family's dynamic and and the needs of each family so every family is different and that's what we're here for to take a look at what the needs of our family so that we could build a good uh good foundations for to meet as many as families that we can so we could support the child care needs whether it's for educational purposes rather it's for child care purposes rather it's for other purposes to fill that need so that adults in the family could do what they want to do to contribute to the workforce to contribute to the society or to contribute and sit in the early learning board but um public education can't be everything to everybody and there's
039just not enough resources to custom everything to every single family and education is one thing as far as academics but what about the social side what about the family learning what about the values and the culture that needs to be taught at home and is that our families looking at early education to substitute for that kind of learning and we're finding that the generations that is coming up may have lost some of that because many of us overachievers wanted to give our children more than what we had and so we were busy working and putting our children to further their education so they can compete and succeed and yet somewhere along the line they've lost some of that family values that we were taught and and that comes to family engagement is so important so
040when we are when we service the family when we come you know when we come with all these goals and and objectives that we want families to succeed definitely we want to that we want to make sure that we are mindful with that with the family's value and promoting that family engagement is as another important things that we need to consider um sharing make sure that we provide these families tools where we could um where they could um learn others open they're open their opportunities for other other things and also be able to share their family values to make sure that their family values continues in their child's social and emotional learning okay thank you i just hope all of the members when they sit on the board will will take those um kinds of
041thoughts into consideration and it's not just an academic learning but it's certainly the whole child and a lot of that depends on the family and the family unit and um and we cannot be all things to every every child and every family yeah yes thank you i believe in the whole chat supporting whole child thank you missile is there anyone else wishing to testify it's not i'm going to take a shortcut following the committee on education back to order remember um the chair would like to recommend that we advise and consent on all of the nominees that are before us today i want to thank them all for being willing to serve um i know that this takes time out from your busy schedules and this is not a paid position and that you will
042do the best that you can for the children of our community with that and hearing no objections members the chair votes by to advise and consent on all our gm's today okay we are voting on gm 816 gm 8 7 8 3 gm 566 gm 567 gm 757 and gm 689 um chair votes i vice chair votes aye to advise and consent senator de la cruz is excused senator kanu senator favela with four members president one excuse recommendations adopted for all gms thank you and the gm 815 again members no action was taken due to that gm being withdrawn by the governor