001good afternoon thank you for joining us for the committee on education our three o'clock meeting [Music] in room 229 today is friday march 11 3 3 p.m meeting in hearing 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 the 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 monday march 14 at three o'clock p.m in this room and a public notice will be passed on the legislature posted
002on the legislature's website 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 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 [Music] thank you members for joining us to my right senator donna kim vice chair of the canadian education and my far right is senator donovan de la cruz and to my left is senator kirk vanella we start with some gm's today governor's message gm 588 submitting for consideration and confirmation
003to the hawaii teachers standard board gubernatorial nominee christine miyami for a term to expire 6 30 2025 christy here yes thank you christy would you like to make a statement i just want to say thank you very much um for uh letting me testify today um i am here for the confirmation um to the hawaii teachers standards board currently i teach at mililani middle school um yes and this would be um to stay on the board for a second term um i've learned a lot and i would really appreciate your consideration to just continue on um and to be able to uh continue with the mission and vision of our our standards board um christy i wanted to ask you and your response to the committee questionnaire that we sent out you noted the importance
004of having a teacher a teacher's perspective on the hawaii teacher standard board can you elaborate a little bit why you feel this is so important sure um knowing that i mean because we are educators and because this is the teacher standards board it's really important for us to have voice too in terms of um what's important for how we want to uh i guess in order to go forward in order to promote professionalism and to bring more teachers in we need that voice it's really important it's it's knowing where the grassroots of where a lot of the um the needs are so we can be that voice and be that leader um for for the board so that's really important to me i feel it's really important for us to have that voice thank you
005christy and for the members i'd like to read a little bit of what she said that i that i picked up on in her letter to us i appreciate that the board is made up of a variety of voices from teachers to state superintendent desert me to administrators to men to members of the public as we are making decisions on how to promote excellence in education it is integral to represent the voice of our teachers and i feel that i can be a neutral voice for teachers of hawaii she goes on to say the standards committee has provided me insight on licensure subject matters standards and educator preparation standards the legislative committee has made me more aware of education bills being considered members do you guys have any questions of christy i wanted to um
006also note that one of the testifiers caleb and matter noted that christie is a diligent organized and efficient professional she is routinely the first to volunteer to help arrange coordinate and facilitate team activities and events for our students thank you christy for volunteering to sit on the white teacher standards boards and we appreciate your service to the board without further questions we'll be moving on thanks again christine thank you very much our next nominee to the hawaii teacher standards board is don raymond for a term to expire 6 30 2025. [Music] don is a special education special education teacher at chiefess pakiolan elementary school a current member of the white teacher standards board and i really uh love what she wrote she says my priorities continue to be ensuring that we provide every child in
007hawaii with qualified teachers promoting professionalism and teaching excellence building public confidence in the teaching professor profession and providing more accountability to the public i really appreciated that and one of the letters written in by carrie sato says don is a dedicated educator to not only her students and community but also to her profession through our mutual service on the hsta board i recognize the unique gifts of this very special teacher what a compliment that is for dawn dawn in your response to the committee you noted learning about different ways a state approved teacher education program sata can implement policies to provide candidates multiple ways to demonstrate proficiency can you please elaborate elaborate on why this is important and how you plan on using this during your next term okay um good afternoon cherokee dhani and
008the education committee um being having served uh since 2019 on the standards board i have like you said learned about the sa tep which is the state approved teacher education programs and how it aligns to implementing policies to provide candidates um to demonstrate their their experiences in the program to complete i i think that these are really important areas because it i'm sorry miss uh senator kilani can you repeat your question um so yeah so you said uh you noted learning about different ways a sata yes program can implement policies to provide candidates multiple ways to demonstrate proficiency so can you elaborate on that statement and why that's important to you well it's important because we have to make sure that our teachers are certified and are following um practices that make them the professionals
009that they are in taking care of our children not only academically but social emotionally protecting them and with these um specific skills that are in place in these programs that the schools have it ensures that we are providing for our keiki um from p to 12th grade in hawaii thank you i'm don members are there any questions of dawn if not moving on to the next person thank you don thank you so gm 570 submitting for consideration confirmation to the white teachers standards board gubernatorial nominee brandon khalidoy for term to expire 6 30 20 24. brandon is a current chair of the boy teacher's standards board is brandon there not present chair thank you some members brandon uh says in his message to us that he would love to continue serving his recent accomplishment um
010as as chair of hs htsb being able to work closely with board members and the interim executive director and licing specialists and it provides some clear understanding of the importance of having highly qualified trained teachers school counselors librarians librarians in the education setting and since brandon is not here we will move along to our fourth nominee principal kim sanders submitting for consideration confirmation to the white teacher standards board for term to expire 6 30 20 25 we're on gm 5 7 one principle sanders is principal at ewa makai middle school [Music] no cheering from the peanuts [Music] in her letter to us she she talked about she hopes to continue to be a productive member of the hawaii teachers standard board and she sits on the hearing panel and helps support decisions of suitability for
011teachers that have been on notice for infractions of misconduct please also say i have learned a lot about accountability for our epp programs that accredit our teachers counselors and librarians kim i don't know what epp is can you explain things so um those are the programs that that are set up for our licensure and so they are what our specialists check out on each of our teachers that applies for us a license and so that is um i'm not sure exactly what the acronym uh is exactly what we call them epps and it's it's actually just looking at the licensure for um being able to be licensed in the state of hawaii thank you kim and eva mckay you're the tiger [Laughter] can you elaborate on um what the improvements have been that and how
012you plan on continuing to approve the system if you are confirmed for an another term um i think um in the past four well the past two years that we've been together the improvements have come along mainly through our licensed specialist we have some great specialists that are part of the board and they do a lot of the background checking but making sure that our systems are in place our policies are tight um so that we make sure that we have the best candidates coming into hawaii for our children and i think that's that's huge um because because we do want the best for our students and i think that's what some of our other members have just um recently said um in the hearing um so it is one of those things where it's
013very important work and um and it's it's great because it's not just um one perspective we have like they were saying earlier we have perspectives from teachers we have a board member from the board of ed we have um um assistant superintendents so it is one of those things where we all come together we have from charter schools from private schools it's it's not limited it's like bringing all those voices together and making sure that we do the best for all of our children in all of the areas in hawaii thank you kim in testimony provided by justin carmichael he says she listens to everyone carefully and makes those difficult decisions with students staff and overall equity in mind she fosters the school community by ensuring that parents and key stakeholders are involved in the
014learning that takes place on the campus another testifier jennifer welch says i was a parent representative on the school community council and i currently work with principal sanders as the pcnc at ewa makai i see on a daily basis principal sanders commitment to the teachers staff and students to make sure she is doing the best she can for them and let them know she hears them and appreciates them she will always try to find a way to make things happen if it is something that is positive and will help students staff or teachers she creates such a positive work environment that makes eva makai the great school it is very nice comments about you principal sanders members questions of our nominee senator padella just just um what you was saying you know i got the
015privilege to work with her and everything that is being said is 110 i learned a lot of a lot of her working skills and her dedication to the school and what most uh especially that i love is you guys social media yeah you guys are so active on social media i get all the information but just thank you continue to serve and uh just like working with you thank you very much kim well thank you ever ever be strong thank you principal sanders thank you very much moving on members you guys have any other questions sorry um moving on to governor's message 573 submitting for consideration confirmation hawaii's teacher standard board gubernatorial nominee katina soares is patina with us oh there she is thanks for joining us katina um and her message to us she
016stated in my state in my letter of interest for htsb which is another term so katina you're currently a board member huh yes that's correct thank you for wanting to serve another term she says another term on htsb would provide me an opportunity assist to assist with shaping the next generation of teachers whose required knowledge skills and dispositions goes far beyond content and curriculum to meet the needs of today's whole child i really like that patina principal lydia trinidad of kuala lumpur school public conversion charter says dr soares comes with a background as a rural educator as a homegrown local teacher school counselor and administrator from molokai has experienced as an administrator in both a charter school and doe school and have led schools have lead schools the hawaiian emergent programs and with a hawaiian
017focus and from josh rafoon says her understanding what school could be what teaching could be is remarkable and visionary she understands what it means for kids to be most likely to succeed she also understands what teachers need to to do to prepare themselves to guide coach mentor and sponsors today's kids as they navigate towards a set of durable skills and social and emotional competencies especially during this covenanting pandemic very nice words from your testifiers dr soares members are there any questions over a nominee if not katina do you have anything you want to add no just thank you i appreciate the opportunity i haven't even been in um as a member for not even a year yet but i've learned so much and i'm excited to have the opportunity to learn more and contribute to
018um providing qualified teachers for our students it's really important thank you very much for your willingness to serve it looks like we're uh rounding up a really great uh teacher standards board with all returning members so thank you for the opportunity for us to uh um confirm your uh nomination to this teacher's standards for patina questions [Music] if not recess reconvening the committee on education members before us we have five gubernatorial nominees and christie miami brain don raymond brandon kawasoi principal kim sanders dr katina katinasaurus and the recommendation of the chair is to approve the nominees and move them forward any questions oh good thank you very much chair's recommendation is to approve all gms gm 568 gm 569 [Music] five seventy one five seventy three all uh for advising consent before members present is
019there any objections [Music] we're past we have passed all the uh gubernatorial nominees and approved them passing this committee and that concludes our meeting you