001thank you for joining us for our three o'clock p.m hearing committee on education before we can be members i'd like to make an announcement aloha everyone thank you for joining us thank you anya for coming i've spoken with interim superintendent hayashi and his team and i believe that the intention behind house bill 2125 is and always has been the enhanced protection of our school community and staff and provide an avenue to address the ongoing and despicable treatment of school personnel who have received threats of bodily harm as well as threats to their family and children however it is clear that this intent has become increasingly muddled and has resulted in a fracturing in the relationship between the doe and our special education families and our community because of the controversy conversations i've had and the
002clear voice from the special ed community i plan to defer this measure today or anya i want to thank interim superintendent hiyashi for his continued willingness to listen to the needs of the special education community and i look forward to finding a collaborative way forward for those who are here in person and on zoom and have signed up to testify you're welcome to still provide your testimony when i call on your name you are welcome to simply stand on your testimony in support for opposition when i call on you thank you very much madam chair i just want to i just want to thank you very much for um deferring the measure for being very responsive to the phone calls to the emails that we have gotten and and this is just a good example
003sometimes where good intentions turn out differently or or is unintended consequences and this happens to be one of them and for us to recognize that for you to recognize that and to not put all of the people here in the situation of being uncertain um thank you very much for your recommendations yeah you know and i stood you to this whole thing but this is one reason why i love working with higher ed and uh education because they really really do their job they really really do and it's a privilege and honor to to work with these ladies and and youtube part of the committee but i i just i just i just love it seriously because they really do their job thank you thank you sir yeah i was going to stand up involved
004[Laughter] welcome to the senate committee on education today is wednesday march 23rd 3 305 pm agenda in room 229 this meeting including the audio and 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 zoom 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 friday march 25th 2022 at 3 o'clock p.m and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions
005on 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 justify 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 and again for those of you who are just joining us the first item on our agenda is house bill 2125 relating to official school business and we are deferring this bill today which means it's dead means it's muckied i did yes okay however i know that there are there are many of you actually there are 252 testimonies mostly in opposition maybe there were four or five
006in support um so thank you uh members of our community for for uh speaking out appreciate that and again uh since you are here and if you want to testify i have signed up to testify i will call your names anyway and we will start with interim superintendent keith ayashi uh deputy superintendent feliciano bassami is here to speak on his behalf aloha committee um i'm feliciano bassami deputy superintendent for the hawaii department of education thank you for having um having me um and i just want to thank the senators for the serious consideration they've given to the bill and i understand the reasoning behind that it was never the department's intention to limit the advocacy of parents for their students and for their children however it is a serious concern of ours that our employees
007are experiencing harassment and name-calling and and threatening behaviors um in the course of doing their job and that is not necessarily the way that we want to operate so thank you for the consideration and we hope that this conversation continues in a way that is productive to making sure that everyone is safe thank you thank you and i think uh just for further clarification uh many of you may have remembered the headlines and what was in the paper a few months ago about a principal and her children who were being threatened with phone calls vulgar language and threatened with bodily harm etc and that was a thrust that started this bill just to just to let you guys know it was never intended to stop parents from being advocates for their students their children next
008to testify um howie amsterdam good afternoon um chairman kidani and vice chair kim members of the commission and my friends and neighbors aloha i'm here representing the mamaloa foundation um kanakama oli jew and educator i'm also an educator also i would i would ask to remember our people in the ukraine been waving signs and to remember them in prayer and help they need our aloha and help at the present time in regards to looking at this situation uh upon initial observation uh it looks reasonable and acceptable but on close um review of the um bill hb2125 hd2 um in looking at it in terms of educational principles rights and also um uh uh different uh values and accountability um i don't accept and support uh this bill i think the person who would accept it
009probably would be vladimir uh putin thank you for your testimony your time is up i'm sorry it's open already yes did you hear the bill i thought we have three minutes no i said one minute oh i just came in oh okay we have one minute thank you for your testimony oh okay well you have it so you can read it mahalo next we testify catherine in opposition is catherine here if not cynthia bartlett cynthia please thank you for the opportunity i i'm actually representing two organizations should i just convince that right now yes we have one minute okay um on hawaii autism foundation was very concerned because we we do have shared values with the doe which is safety and communication with the teachers is our top priority so um this bill actually we
010felt would intimidate and and set fear in some of our some of our parents because they advocate and uh so that was our concern there um we found that um parents who advocate are already doing a lot of emails and voicemails and it was it was pointed out that those could be termed as harassing or interfering with the school so that's what our big concern was and then as far as representing moms for liberty um we're just a new chapter here in hawaii and uh we're always defending parent rights at all levels of government so thank you thank you cynthia next to testify okay sarita thank you all right so um you know with this bill um when you're looking at i read um hayashi's testimony and thank you first of all for killing this
011bill um so you know one of the things that is a big concern for me is that i didn't see any testimony from the board of direct board of education they didn't say anything and then the doe just remember that the doe isn't a law enforcement so how do how is that way out and who's going to pay for this bill and then more so if we want the parents involvement to get involved penalizing the students and the parents is and it's hard because i do understand where she comes from however you know our kids if if our school continues to allow our children to swear at the teachers um that's something also that i have a big concern about a little respecting for that so i am against the bill and i just really
012want to thank you for that thank you thank you very much caleb next to testify janelle nicole scanlan janelle nicole scanlon if not patrick minville this is who i'm speaking for today this is my son connor he's 19 years old he attends castle high school he's in a self-contained autism class again as many people have stated i'm opposed to this bill because the state of hawaii already has adequate laws in place for harassment um if teachers or people within the deal we are feeling like they're being threatened in any way shape or form they should be contacting the police it's a policing matter um it was also pointed out the amount of data submitted was really insufficient and really unst and substantiated uh the bill also went against and violates the idea which is federal
013law i'm going based on what i've been presented as as a parent okay so i'm assuming that i've been instructed correctly but in my opinion personally the proposed legislation appeared to be a gross overreach by the department of education in an attempt to act as judge and jury by blocking accountability not only to the students they're employed to educate protect and serve but the parents that support and advocate for the students and also all citizens of the state of hawaii thank you patrick susan duffy i'll just stand on my written testimony thank you susan next rosie rowe chair i'd like to stand on my uh testimony thank you rosie in opposition next to testify mary beth kikumuru mary beth in opposition next to testify tala lupe lele did i say that right [Music] okay she's
014testifying in opposition margaret majia maja also in opposition arthur no last name arthur do you want to be arthur i'm in opposition to peace i don't know will the ethics commission allow us to take it no i'm serious they won't even let us take it i think you should share it with the people here though you can slide it down to kurt i know he'll lead it i just wanted to say thank you even though we're in opposition we thank god for people like you who are the leaders of this great state of hawaii for thinking about the people and the children i'm so grateful this day that that the wisdom and the spirit of the people of families mothers and fathers and children spoke clearly regards to what you said when you said the
015bill was deferred i just want to say thank you to all of you thank you so much thank you next michelle in addition to my written testimony i would like to state that i am in strong opposition of this bill based on our experiences fed parents we struggled for several years with doe representatives to obtain the services that our daughter anya was entitled to under idea and many times the doe representatives contested and made it very difficult for my husband and i to obtain these services for anya on more than one occasion dewey representatives insinuated or blamed myself my husband and anya for the difficulties and behavior that they were encountering at school based on this experience and the testimony provided by russell suzuki during the house judiciary committee hearing on february 24 2022 which
016specifically singled out sped parents we are extremely concerned that doe representatives will continue to try and suppress sped parents and children and abuse any authority granted to them if this bill passes my husband and i and anya thank you for deferring this measure thank you michelle thank you anya just so that you know the last time that they visited us anya was put to work and doing uh shredding recycling thank you anya yes i know she wants to sign up for session staff i know that thank you next to testify joseph yoshimura in opposition jim hochsberg all right thank you a minute is super short i have a seven page legal analysis of the bill that i would really that i submitted as my testimony that i'd really like you to read but there are
017a couple of points really quick tolerance is a two-way street the parents need to feel respected so that they respect the schools and in my testimony i cite to uh secretary riley policy that was put together when president clinton was president about what the doe was supposed to do and it was total collaboration with families giving families info they need to participate in decision making please read that and also there's some legal analysis of the basically the law for 100 years has been parents are primarily in charge of the educational upbringing of their kids and so pushing parents out of the process for fear of being arrested is like so counterproductive so thank you for deferring this thank you jim and again that was not the intention of the bill but thank you guys very
018much appreciate it next to testify cynthia bartlett oh did you testify already yeah signed up twice okay thank you in opposition sharon martin in opposition stanley scanlan in opposition tiana wilbur thank you chair for the opportunity and for allowing me in here um so i have strongly passionately opposed hp 2125 um it's already been mentioned that uh parent involvement is a key to a child's curriculum and success academically um i've been actually my son has been denied to go to school since january by his principal and i had a phone call this morning that is relative to this um it that call ended with me verbalizing just asking concerning questions and when my son can return um and he said that he cannot and as i was asking other questions and his attendance and him
019not being marked absent he said you know what i'm not going to take your harassment and abuse so where who is the judgment in bills like this because now if he says he goes and files a complaint saying that i'm harassing and abusing him then now i'm and right now i'm the only parent for my child for my children um i also just passionately i say passionately want to be an advocate for the children because if we aren't the advocates for them then who who is if there is something happening in school right so i i did lose a son nine years ago tomorrow is his anniversary so it's very passionately adamant for me to use my voice for my children thank you tiana thank you very much sure i'd like to stand on my
020testimony but thank you and the committee for deferring this bill i appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to the collaboration with the school and rebuilding safety for the for the teachers as well as the parent school relationship which i think is so important in this matter i thank you for allowing me to continue to be the voice for our daughter who's 18 with autism and non-speaking and allowing me to be her voice as you are allowing other special needs parents to do as well thank you very much william lawson in opposition naomi grossman in opposition margaret colvin with comments martha here uh senator this is susan rocco speaking up for martha dinan can you hear me i can hear you susan are you testifying are you on the list to testify also i
021i am the staff person to martha and so i am just uh saying that okay this is the special education advisory council that's really proceed thank you very much for your consideration today and siac would be happy to work with the department on language that really gets it what their true purpose was this was so muddied up that it it jeopardized family school partnerships for all families so thank you from siac thank you susan and hariuchi deputy attorney general good afternoon chair kidani vice chair kim and members i'll stand on the department's testimony providing comments regarding section two and i'll send uh stay online if there are any questions thank you thank you ann reynolden tirado in opposition yes good afternoon chair good afternoon everyone i stand on my written testimony opposing hb 2125 house
022version 2 and my mahalo my mahalo senator kirani and the rest of the senate education committee for the decision to defer hb 2125 aloha thank you shigemi okada you're on me she gave me i can't hear you thank you good afternoon edie chan members and i strongly oppose house bill 2125 if this bill is passed censorship of parents and guardians will become inevitable as they speak up as advocates for their children it will become it discourage and even prohibit parents from expressing their concerns and their [Music] freedom of fear of being charged with a misdemeanor my question is who will adjudicate intent to harass annoy or alarm an educational worker when someone considers another's action just knowing that it is or her perception is subjective simply labeling them as harassment and treating them as demeanor
023is revelation as constitution first amendment the supreme court requires a government to provide substantial justification for the interference with their right to free speech so hb 2125 as it currently reads suppresses and takes away the voices of parents and advocating for their children violating the first amendment instead of such legislation please use thank you shigemi your minute is up but in case you didn't hear the announcement and opening we are deferring this measure that means this measure is dead thank you rita kama kimura thank you i am pleased that this bill has been deferred do keep in do keep in mind shoots do keep in mind that parents are responsible for their children educators are entrusted with the child's care and education note we are talking about taxpayer-funded education the idea that they as members
024of the board of education or teachers don't want to hear from parents when they are concerned upset or even irate is part of the job sadly it's part of life we are aware that there is an existing law in place that addresses this hrs7 11-1106 and that is what should be looked at and used the concern with this bill as it is written is an insult to parents and concerned citizens this puts in place a path to threaten parents with censorship should they speak up and when concerned when concerned or wanting answers when that once that happens i cringe to think what else this might lead to out of respect for parents and citizens of the state i give thanks that this bill has been deferred thank you thank you rita next to testify susan
025piccola davis you hear me yes oh thank you good afternoon and yes i'm another one that's pleased to hear the um the outcome of this 21 whatever you want to call it however i do wanted to uh support that hawaii revised statute 711-1106 has this covered already and to try and create a bill that's separate in order to protect education workers is going could could if this had gone through set a precedent for other government government workers to have their names listed or their job titles i understand that there may have been a misconception of what the intent was however if you do go back and watch the youtube video of the february 24th and 25th committee on judiciary and hawaiian affairs and you listen carefully thank you susan your time is up next to
026testify lara pahiapo aloha and and i'm happy to hear about the outcome so far but i just um i sent in a written testimony which i hope you all read because there's no time to read all of it uh so i i was a parent i'm a parent of a son with special needs who is not anymore in the system but um i had a situation where i endured where my son endured quite a bit of abuse from a situation that occurred at school which i had no long knowledge about um so i proceeded to pull up to school one day and found that three staff members were trying to put him in my car knees bleeding unconscious and i and and i was shaking all over and yes i may have found harassment harassing
027when i yelled what's going on what's going on i screamed out get me an ambulance what are you guys doing and then they told me just move your car and i said i'm not moving my car i was shaking all over and i yeah i yelled out i'm not moving i'm gonna sit with my son but these things happen imagine if it was happening to your child how you might react and i endured years of trying to get through the settlement um just to get help for him and others that they would not have to ever go through that thank you linda elento in opposition linda hello yes this is linda elento can you hear me i can i hope you're parked and not driving linda i am parked thank you very much okay aloha
028thank you very much for deferring this measure i did want to share the measure interferes with an individual civil rights including individuals with disabilities who may have communication deficits or behavior needs due to disability this bill could put students against teachers and parents against school schools i lost all sense of confidence in the interim superintendent showing concern of the safety of employees when his risk manager last testified at the house hearing that parents of special education students were the reason for this bill a school system however can improve its communication with students and families and the public and give them the time of day as well as clear procedures and policies now finish with the school can open the door to communication and fairly investigate administratively or through the hawaii civil rights commission but not
029make an accusation of harassment as any form of crime thank you very much for the opportunity we appreciate what you're doing for us mahalo thank you linda um i want to go back i think now there's two uh people who are now on zoom that i called earlier naomi grossman are you there naomi margaret cobin margaret covent are you there okay i guess they're still not on there hello i can't see you are you who who's speaking is this margaret or naomi um this is naomi i'll do it i understand there's only one minute is that correct that's correct please proceed thank you just real quickly um i was almost arrested so i want to share what happened uh i went to us to the school with a parent and um this uh school apparently
030held the iep meeting without letting the parent know so she asked and they reschedule it excellent we get there and the principle starts by saying okay here's the reading test results are you okay with it can we move on and we don't know what to say so we said we'll follow your lead i said stop no talking i'm at either the parent answers or no one answers and so he said but we're here together as one voice and he said and he continued on to what's called the pleb then we said the two questions was do you agree can we move on that's two questions we said we're taking your lead stop i'm calling security he called security assistance thank you naomi sorry your time is up margaret colvin margaret coven yes please proceed you
031have a minute one minute dr coven has given it to naomi grossman so i was i'm sorry i'm sorry okay she she was about to be arrested um and the clues were called and came um i'd like to say that i'm opposed to the bill the laws that are on books are certainly adequate to cover these situations i sympathize with all government workers right now about their fears and their anxieties because of the lack of civility in the community for different groups dealing with each other however this particular bill since it only deals with the doe and it primarily will impact families who are covered under idea singles them out and potentially criminalizes them while no other groups in our entire society are being impacted in the same way in our community thank you for
032your testimony margaret so margaret and naomi you came on late in case you didn't hear the announcement we are planning to defer this bill that means this bill is dead thank you for your testimony next to testify jerry sugano yes aloha cherokee vice chair mercado kim and members of the senate education committee my name is jerry sugano and i have two amazing children with special needs i just wanted to stay on the line and thank you chair kidani for listening to the parental concerns and for deferring this bill today the safety of our state's educational workers is a serious concern and it's something we should continue to fight for mahalo thank you jerry we have a few other testifiers who signed up steve hope steve hulk here henry vincent i can't read this writing henry
033sorry i get my notes on my phone but i wanted to say mahalo 44 in this bill i do have i do represent humanity and my family and friends and my children i do have 10 children and i had three of them in a educational field where they had ieps and sometimes it is frustrating to um to hear what this bill is writing and we do have you know the teachers and volunteers and educational have already have uh protected under certain harassment issues but as when it comes to the curriculum we should as parents be able to be voice and say this is not what we want for our children but i'm glad that this bill has been deferred and thank you very much for hearing our voices thank you thank you for your testimony
034members that concludes the uh testifier signed i guess not okay are these on zoom or in person okay cheryl for you cheryl i'm not sure julianne yes i don't have your name here but please come forward oh hello [Music] for deferring this bill it means so much to us i have a son with autism and he has he's 22 now so he's finished the doe and i prided myself on having a great relationship with our principals and our teachers but there were times in our history where we had difficulties some severe difficulties and had to work things out and i just um i'm so glad that this bill has been deferred because if if we want to work on on teachers safety we should just focus on including families into the decision-making process i think
035that we need to decentralize the system i think that families need to be on school boards we need an elected school board and we need to have maybe community regional areas you know where families get to get to help the administration decide on what best practices should be implemented for our kids oh thank you can i get you to please write your name down your information we used to have elected school boards and the voters decided to have appointed school board members so um is that it for the testifiers i called it but i will call it again thank you hello thank you for uh deferring this bill so what i do is um sometimes you know parents they they get put in situations at school and the the kids are getting discriminated on and
036segregated on i personally go to the school and administer the rights for these kids because all kids still have civil rights we didn't lose that just over these mandates so this bill would create a way to incriminate someone like me who's just standing up to voice this for the children and so i'm glad you guys deferred it and if you guys could just stay away from all the bills like this that would be great so that we could focus on the real problems instead of running around in the weeds thank you thank you i just want to thank you thank you your committee my name is and i'm opposed to hb uh 25 what is it 21 25 and any other bill similar to it which means the senate bill 3093 attached to it's a
037companion bill these bills uh as someone mentioned they violate a person's first amendment rights and they actually gag and hulk thai parents um and rescind obviously any kind of uh any kind of uh nurturing responsibility that is specifically and solemnly just appearance we can't go giving these these different responsibilities to other people they solely belong to the parent okay and i just want to say that children have the right to be cared for by their parents in a loving home and no one else no one else tops the parents responsibility they are a their thank you please conclude children i will the children of our heavenly father and they are the fruit of the womb and they are to be cherished within the family thank you thank you okay i believe that is all of
038our testifiers members are there any questions okay is that the only bill on the agenda uh yeah okay thank you all for uh joining us for on this bill and if anybody would like a manapua [Music] this meeting is adjourned can you pick that up calling to order the committee on education this is wednesday march 23rd 3 o'clock agenda for decision making on the following measures house bill 1941 hd1 relating to education requires the department of education to establish grant programs to provide funds for the planning and implementation of community schools through a two-year pilot program uh did we have any okay sorry yes so for house bill 1941 the recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments we will replace all references to sustainable community schools with community schools amend the definition section
039to include definitions for eligible school school leadership teams and pillars of community schools and to clarify the definition of applicant we will amend to streamline and clarify the application requirements and process for the community school grant programs clarifying streamlining the reporting requirements inserting maximum maximum dollar amounts for the grants clarify the term of the pilot program and the grants clarifying the submission content and timing requirements for community school plans replacing all references to request for proposal with application process replacing all references to operational grant with implementation grant clarifying grant implementation requirements and program evaluation criteria we will insert a blank appropriation to the department of education for the purposes of funding the grants also inserting a repeal date of june 30th 2027 and there are some technical and non-substantive amendments questions members so recommendation of
040the chair is to pass house bill 1941 with amendments chair votes share votes eye on hospital 1941 with amendments vice chair votes eye senator de la cruz please excuse senator kanu senator favela four eyes one excuse recommendations adopted thank you for house bill recommendation is to pass with amendments the amendments are technical and non-substantive in nature um password amendments hb 1942 chair votes i any member president voting in the negative any members voting with reservations hearing none four members present one excuse recommendations adopted thank you members needing suggestions you