001thank you for joining us on the committee on education this is friday april 9 or 3 o'clock p.m agenda joining me with is our committee vice chair senator don orcado kim and online virtually we have birthday boy senator drew panuja of which we got no birthday cake that i couldn't recall yeah which he did not share his birthday so it's on its way so with that we will get started with uh oops i have to read this 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 the zoom meeting and youtube live stream event will include the three o'clock pm agenda for the committee on education in
002the 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 april at 3 o'clock p.m any 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 on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for the people participating remotely all testifier audio will be muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify when i call your name staff will unmute you 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 manner thank you we'll start with uh house
003concurrent resolution 68 requesting the department of education to create a landscape management plan with goals to increase the tree canopies on public school grounds document existing inventory and talent and identify additional resources required to implement and sustain the plan we have a bunch of written testimony but no oral testimonies are correct members any questions on this resolution or any comments also joining us is uh senator favela thank you senator if no questions comments on item one we will move on to item 2 which is gm governor's message 796 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee mari uihara for a term to expire 6 30 20 23 and while mari was not able to join us we do have testimony and support from beginning with robert peters chair of the early
004learning board robert please thank you chair kadani vice chair kim and committee members on behalf of the early learning board we support the continued term of dr mariuhara as a representative of the chapter of the american academy of pediatrics on the early learning board dr uehara brings a specialty in developmental behavior pediatrics and an understanding of children and families that we find particularly helpful in our conversations and deliberations as a governing board murray is an active participant on the board and one whose advice and counsel we will benefit from if she is confirmed thank you senator thank you bob next to testify laura moriguchi director executive office of early learning lauren please thank you good afternoon cherokee dhani vice chair kim and members of the committee uel supports the nomination of dr uehara to the
005early learning board as a representative of the hawaii chapter of the american academy of pediatrics also known as aap dr uehara is a developmental behavioral pediatrician and has been with the aap since 1997. she's been a staunch advocate for high quality early care and education programs including the need to develop and support a high quality early childhood work workforce as a member of the aap and with her extensive experience with working with young children with various needs including infants and those in preschools and other group child care centers dr uehar would continue to be an asset as a member to the early learning board thank you thank you members and because dr is a practicing pediatrician she was not able to be with us today but it's not because she has is not interested so
006i just wanted to thank her for her service and members ask if you have any questions of either bob peters or lauren moriguchi if not we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is gm797 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board gubernatorial nominee aaron henderson lacerdo for a term to expire 6 30 20 25 to testify and support robert peters please thank you church kodomi um the early learning board is in support of the confirmation of aaron henderson macerdo although we i do not know her personally she brings a background to home visiting professional development specialist to this conversation and she was the unanimous choice of the home visiting program network to assume this particular seat on the board as i reviewed some of the testimony and support of
007her it convinced me even more that she will represent that sector particularly well thank you so much thank you also to testify lauren moriguchi please thank you chair vice chair and members of the committee eol supports the nomination of aaron henderson lucerto to the early learning board as a representative of the home visiting program providers i understand that she's currently a statewide program director of the hit lay pico home visiting at kiki okana and has also worked in the early childhood field for 12 years with her extensive experience administering home visiting programs we believe mrs henderson laceredo will be an asset as a member to the early learning board thank you thank you lauren also to testify department of health good afternoon chair my name is matthew shim i'm chief of the family health services
008division our department stands on this testimony and support thank you very much thank you is aaron with us today erin would you like to make an opening statement hi aloha my name is erin henderson lucerto i'm really looking forward and very honored to be considered as a representative of the home visiting service providers for the early learning board of the executive office of early learning mahalo for consideration i'm very very passionate about home visiting and i truly believe that home visiting is a way to access services for families in our communities especially communities that are hard to reach and families who are who may have some challenges in accessing other early learning opportunities um that we can go right to them and so i really do hope that i will be able to be continued
009um as the nominee for the for the representative of home visiting thank you aaron and thank you for your detailed responses to my uh the questionnaire that we did send you can you tell me what goals do you have for the executive office on early learning one of the goals that i have is to really advocate for and to represent home visiting field in early childhood it is often that when we think of early childhood we tend to think of center-based programs and so it is going to be my duty really to provide a larger lens to to represent a little bit more home visiting program services delivery across the state and i really do hope that we can increase the amount of home visiting services that are provided across the state especially in communities
010that are hard to reach thank you aaron and what resources do you believe the eoel needs to accomplish its mission i think it's a little challenging for me to say what specific resources might be needed because i have not been i don't have enough knowledge i think at this point in terms of the things that have been the discussions that have been held regarding this but i do believe that no matter what we do have to have a field that encourages collaboration across sectors that has a that we have sustainability and programs and that we also are a comprehensive network of providers for children and families and so i do believe that we will need um to continue to work together and the eoel is an is an example of how we can have public
011and partner public and private partnerships in place that can collaborate to greater serve the community thank you for that erin members any questions of our nominee if not thank you very much aaron and moving on to the final agenda item gm794 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the board of education gubernatorial nominee william arakaki for term to expire 6 30 we have about 28 testimony and support and three in opposition but none are oral so this is all written testimony only not no one speaking today is bill arakaki there he is thank you bill would you like to make an opening statement yes senator kenani and vice chair kim and others on the committee uh thank you for this opportunity uh to serve again to the many stakeholders in education it is a great opportunity
012to give back again as a public servant and being in the department of education over 40 years it's been a privilege to be with many great leaders and inspirational partners that have really made education a great opportunity for our students and families thank you so much thank you bill and i was asked to read the testimony of mayor derek kawakami honourable chair pidani vice chair kim and honorable members i am honored to testify in strong support of william arakaki's appointment to the state of hawaii board of education his institutional knowledge collaborative skills and willingness to serve others will strengthen the board's role in directing the education our state's youth mr arakaki has been a lifelong mentor as my high school football coach he taught us about teamwork integrity dependability and leadership as our former kauai
013complex area superintendent he brings a unique view and perspective on what is needed to strengthen our existing public school system and as a lifelong educator he understands the need to transition our system into the 21st century to give our students a competitive edge mr arakaki spent the first 10 years of his educational career as a teacher on oahu as a lifelong learner he realized how much better life was on our wonderful island of kauai and transitioned to teaching here shortly after that mr arakaki developed his credentials in administration and began his tenure in educational leadership administering at the elementary middle and high school levels as well as his experience as a motivational and alternative learning teacher provided the solid foundation for mr arakaki's role as the kawaii complex area superintendent during this time he directed
014our schools and community with his ability to consider all aspects of a situation he listened to the suggestions and complaints of all parents and did his best to provide the best academic path for each child lately our north shore community has been hit with several natural disasters mr arakaki always worked with our emergency management team to make sure our keiki from hanalei elementary school were safely united with their parents during flood days after our 2018 april floods many of those same students were cut off from their school due to landslides mr arakaki thought out of the box and a temporary satellite school and in waimea served those students and even some from the middle and high school since his retirement mr arakaki has continued to serve our community volunteering with food distribution during the pandemic
015and as a volunteer with our agency on elderly affairs he is truly someone who cares about others i ask this honorable committee to advise and consent to mr arakaki's nomination and forward to the full senate for consideration mahalo for the opportunity to present this testimony okay um congratulations on being nominated bill and thank you for uh responding to the the questions that we forwarded over to you actually now i'm looking for my questions sorry how do you as a board member plan on upholding your constitutional mandate to formulate statewide educational policy um yes first senator and everyone want to do the connections uh as you may know everyone has a you know he's involved in education so students parents teachers support staff administrators business and community partners and all others that are impacted by the
016board event policies i need the trust and relationships so basically to be able to hear what each segment is talking about what their needs are how we're going to get there and how we're going to do it together is by building those relationships we have been here to see and to really understand what we're doing how will do that basically is to go visit to be at activities uh to have focus groups and there's many things that uh the department has been doing to be able to get input and hearing kind of things so once i'm able to do that then from there i would need to really research and find out how we're doing as far as the system to really make those efforts in any kind of policies that will impact to really
017impact the whole state of hawaii as far as education thank you for that bill how would you then as a board member the board of education be able to gather the information necessary to determine whether our students are achieving academically and are college and career ready as you may know all of you at the daily website each i deal with award there's a lot of information there's a lot of data that's out there so so basically you know through the um the policy or the hrs that says that the doa needs to provide that information so how i would work right is look at what we have today right now they really understand if people out there you know the ones that are impacted you know many are educated many are may know what you
018know all those data means but there are others that are grassroots that need to really understand what is happening what within the system so um you know i've been fortunate with mr hamada and many others worked with the harvard graduate education where in order to make change there are many things we need to look at so using that data really needs to help us uh context like for example the pandemic on you know with uh kovit 19 that is something that we cannot control with something happen so you know with the context similar to education and the policies we need to make you know what are some of the things that are impacting that things that we can really affect and make change would be culture competencies and conditions so as we look at what
019people are saying what's happening out there uh we can look at the culture a lot of people feeling insane and how do we make it so that we can uh really attune to what is needed to be done competencies comes with training staff develop professional development communication that goes out there and conditions of course would be determining policies uh if there's funding different kind of other resources that need to be considered the conditions to change so that we can make the policy work it happen for for the the system is something that we need to consider so those are you know some of the experiences that maybe would be able to assist me in making that important supports to the people that the things that need to be done within education thank you for that
020bill as you know we we are searching for a new superintendent that would hopefully be able to start um come august first what qualities and traits do you believe the next superintendent needs for our kick for our keiki to grow and thrive in our educational system uh that is that is truly uh to search and the qualifications you know many people out there have many ideas of what that should be you know again when i speak about trusting relationship being able to connect with people being able to communicate with the manufacturer factions and constituents within the state of hawaii most definitely we need to have a superintendent that truly has the heart and understands what people need and what education is all about and definitely a person that understands instructional teaching research and data regarding
021what is working out there and also the ability to collaborate and work with many others the examples that um you know for me on hawaii coming from oahu and this is you know we have these uh examples on oahu and big island and maui and hawaii and you know i've been very fortunate with the team we have here where we collaborate you know with senate uh president kochi the four representatives the mayor the county council the businesses and so on and and the parents and many others where we're able to really work together and be a team and be united now we may have disagreement there will be times in which you know we may not agree that we need to really get to a point on how we need to get to our goals
022and how we're going to get there together for the benefit of our students so a superintendent especially for the state of voice of the toughest job and to be able to really master and collaborate especially for hawaii and all of you know coming from hawaii we are a melting pot of many nationalities and races so you know with the whole theme apa you have a sense of belonging you know there's five areas in there and i can't really remember what it is you know how do we make sure that you know we really represent what's happening in the state of hawaii aloha and what goes on so to have someone that may come from a different state or elsewhere or even from here you know these are things that within our community and state of
023hawaii there are many values that we need to continue and be cognizant of as we make decisions that are really really important for everyone that are here in the state thank you for that bill and i i you know i want to say you know the communication piece is so critical i think and with your background and knowing uh principles and other cases etc and i hope that should you be confirmed that you will um you know reach out and touch bases with with the uh the department of education community and you know when you have uh issues that you would like more input on and uh and not just uh wait for the meetings to see who comes out to testify because i think that's one of the things that our board our current
024board could be much better at so thank you members are there any questions of our nominee yeah senator kim thank you mr cocky i appreciate your willingness to serve i have to be honest with you i'm a little bit troubled by the testimonies received in opposition to your nomination and i've been reviewing them you start off in your questions to say that i intend to build connections with students parents teachers and supportive staff and so forth building trust and relationships but when i'm reading these testimonies it doesn't seem like you have that relationship or have that relationship um and listening so can you address that um within my position as a complex superintendent and i'm not too sure what you know the testimony is referring to as far as not me not being able to
025communicate or to listen i'm sure there are different decisions or certain decisions that may have not been um well you know liked by others that that may not have agreed with what my decision were um but you know for me you know i really tried to uh hear from different sides and at a certain point uh they really need this need to make a decision regarding that so maybe that's the case if if there was a situation i'm not sure you know who disagrees with me i can't remember or what that testimony is about and they may not be happy about it but i truly try to work with everyone to be able to make the best decision again within my opposition okay i know that a couple of them was about the music room
026and i can see where that would be in disagreement but there are others that said under his leadership as kaz on kauai about a decade until 2019 myankawa experienced dysfunctional principles poor morale among doe teachers and staff and general stagnation um i acknowledge mr hockey as years of experience as dua administrators as a kind man but i do not see it in his skill set to run such a large organization such as the boe and then there's another one from a teacher who talked about a situation um of you putting in a mr nathan iwohi um returned to kapa'a because the staff received letters i mean it's a poor decision by mr arakaki it's smacked of cronyism clearly not good for education decisions and then another one from i guess this person is a teacher
027when i was a teacher at kapaa middle school he had a chaotic and ineffective management style that left our school of free for all for disciplinary problems and made doing my job as a teacher very difficult um another one about uh the daughter being bullied and assaulted while on campus at kapahe high school during her ninth grade at no time did mr arakaki offer me any solutions for her situation he was disengaged and indifferent to my concerns which was surprising and disappointing to me never once did he address the issue of my daughter being bullied or assaulted uh another one our concerns rise from experience of mr akaki's lack of solution generating conflict resolution in particular he did not address or resolve the poor school climate at waimea canyon middle school after being approached by
028staff and parents canon middle school staff morale remains low student education experiences are less than optimal parents dissatisfaction remains high another one when issues and mismanagement occurred in the kauai complex area mr akaki avoided concerns complaints were unaddressed concerns were deflected so how do you address some of those it's not just the decisions you made it seems like an overall concern by teachers and parents well let me make a statement as far as employees you know um as the conflicts are superintendent and especially with administrators you know um and again a lot of that information is confidential so as far as what my decisions are made is on what is the best interest for the person that is in that position and also what is for the best interest of the students and families that
029are impacted by that school so again you know there are there are many or some that you know at a particular school may not have agreed with uh that that admission that was there and wanted that person not to be there and again for me hawaii being so small you know how do i make sure that it's not nothing against the person's ability and so on bb it's a leadership style and so on uh it's not about you know defamation or character or anything like that so for me you know making sure that the person is able to really support the school and do what needs to be done especially when covey came in um you know that ability to be able to run this school at that time and you know those kind of
030things so basically you know my decision that many may not have agreed regarding a certain school we really worked at it and even with uh chris kapamiro and kapa uh waimea canyon school was mentioned and even with miami academy school we did have public meetings and met with the hsta union reps and others the same thing with kapaa middle school to be really you know get the information out and to really try to resolve the issue and really place people as needed so you know my decisions are made and you know i stand by it you know as far as what needs to be done now as far as um bullying and you know with students that are you know in chapter 19 if something happens to them you know i am an avid supporter
031of not having bullying you know part of the residence committee on kauai to really address that matter bully free kawaii has been something we've been doing for the past over six years so you know as a young administrator you know that may have happened as far as you know people may have a perception but as uh going into the system and trying to really resolve it to the grassroots of what is causing that which may be to social media and really trying to connect with the parents uh we you know as far as uh what we tried to do with this past six years was to really try and improve that so uh you know we continue to have those issues and things and my goal has always been to try and make sure that
032we can avoid what had happened earlier people may have been impacted or have been bullied and you know um early in the years and to really prevent that and make it better for everyone okay i certainly understand that not everybody's going to agree with you and we experience that all the time i think i'm looking at it more on a general situation because you do talk about you know communication you talk about connecting you talk about listening and it just seems that in the the um uh recurring theme and a lot of these testimonies that we receive um that they didn't feel that they had that kind of communication with you that you were listening and even if they didn't agree that you didn't provide alternatives or suggestions that the morale was low so it's
033not necessarily just specific decisions but just an overall i guess attitude and overall willingness so if that's the case just in on kauai and some of these schools i mean on a larger scale on the board of education those kinds of concerns are going to be even greater so how are you going to deal with those well you know i just have to prove myself as far as being you know what i say as far as trying to listen uh being able to communicate and connect with others you would have to you know by my actions and if it continues to be something that becomes a problem then you know and there is complaints regarding that regarding my decisions and you know how i may not be communicating to others or connecting to others uh
034then you know um is something that's uh you know that is there then i need to you know for me i want to improve upon those things i've been working on those things and um you know we need to see you know what what goes on when we do get into a situation with when you go out there okay let me ask you a hypothetical situation it's something that actually happened but um a report or reports were asked of the board of ed and uh or the superintendent and the board of education did not and the chair did not uh go after getting these reports and those reports i believe uh senator kendall if you can refresh my memory was like a year old or something i forgot what it was um but the board
035made no effort to to get them to respond and get them to respond timely so if you're on the board and that happened what would you do as a board member if the chair is not requiring it and um you know these reports were late and were never turned in yes so you know um again if the information reports of can be it's public information that can be provided you know and we can get response to it i would work with the chair and uh whoever i need to on the board to make ensure that even though it's late that we get some kind of response and that report given to the necessary people that were asking for it that's interesting because you know um you know as a cas and even as principals we
036do have letters that go to the board regarding there's a report or complaint that we need to fill out and sometimes it takes really quick to be an asset sometimes it doesn't but the main thing is to make sure that we respond to it as best as we can and as as quickly as we can so so my my response to that is if you know as a board member if that hasn't been completed you know how would i be able to get that information and provide it to the chair and help support so that can close that case or get some kind of resolution to it so if the superintendent did not turn in the report and the report is months late and you have a board meeting what would you do what would
037you do to to get that report because we complained it to the board and nothing was done they kept asking for it and they kept letting it go would you put on any kind of sanctions would you would you put any kind of disciplinary action is that's what i'm looking for what would you do um well again and again i'm not sure what the extent of the board members as far as disciplinary action that can be done because i know in selection and there is a evaluation process the board does so during the evaluation process if the accountability is not happening then at that point you know are we i know i think it's about renewing the superintendent's contract whether to do that or not due to something that is really vital in what needs
038to be done as the superintendent as a board member if there is a serious case enough to to recommend not renew that that was something that needs to be done as far as other sanctions i don't know what um that would be but just by looking at you know when i see board meetings and things as a former daily member is about the renewal or extension of the contract for the superintendent okay but sometimes the renewal of the superintendent contract is not is years away and so here we have a report that is requested needed in order to affect programs let's say for example and it's not being the superintendent is not complying what was requested and so will you be one of those that will speak up even though the chair you might have
039to go against the chair or will you be a you will you be a voice to make sure that these things get get done um yeah you know uh being the representative here for what's out there i will put in reminders to wherever i need to that you know the super does not be completed we need to get it done and so on but now i we need to look further into it as far as what the uh stipulation is how far can we push the issue um regarding that but you know definitely at the meetings if it's not completed as a reminder i call it reminders i don't know for a better word as far as you believe this is coming up you know we need to make sure it's late or so on
040so that we can move forward okay what happens if it's like you know after five reminders and it still doesn't get there then what well then after five reminders i'm not sure if we as the board can make stipulations okay uh we're gonna get some you know i don't know what the penalties will be but if that is something that the board is able to do then that is something we need to look into okay thank you i think uh when senator kim asked me that question not one specific report came to mind because there has been several and the last one i think was the finance and infrastructure committee asking for budgetary information on the funding that was coming from the federal government as to how it was going to be used etc and
041that the information did not come down and then there's the i don't know the 2019 promise plan that still hasn't been finalized etc so i think what uh senator kim is alluding to is that there has not been probably enough sanctions on the superintendent but what it comes down to basically is evaluation of her performance and uh so uh in this case um the superintendent has you know said she's not gonna ask for another term but um there were some um i guess uh some of the the board members that you know feel that she did not perform well and uh this is a situation that we're in and looking for a new superintendent so thank you for those questions senator and unfortunately there is no um no process to remove uh you know governor's
042appointment or governor's nominee once we have them in until their their term is up basically and i don't know if that's you know something that um we have ever discussed but um i appreciate your um candidness bill and like i said um there there were 28 letters and testimony and support and there were three in opposition but i believe that there were also some emails that were sent that were in in opposition and they seem to have been related to uh certain times of your tenure at as a principal too but but members any further questions if not thank you bill thank you okay members um i'm ready for decision making on the four items on the agenda are there any questions before we move forward for hcr 6 8 recommendation of the chair is
043to where's my sheet there's two i don't have a sheet okay to pass as is were there tech commitments no okay recommendation of a chair for hcr 68 is a pass as is chair votes eye chair votes eye on hcr 6 8 vice chair vote side senator de la cruz excuse senator canoha aye senator favela senator favello okay uh madam chair four members present vote informative recommendations adopted thank you for her governor's message 796 to for gubernatorial nominee mari uihara for the early learning board for a turn to expire 6 30 20 23 recommendation is to advise and consent on this nominee chair votes eye chair vote sai on governor's message 796 vice chair vote side senator de la cruz still not here senator kanu aye senator favela four eyes your recommendations adopted thank you
044and for governor's message 797 also for nominee to be confirmed for the early learning board nominee aaron henderson lucerto recommendation of the chair is to advise and consent chair votes members president any member voting with reservations any members voting in the negative hearing non-four members present your recommendations adopted thank you for the final agenda item governor's message 794 submitting for consideration confirmation to the board of education gubernatorial nominee william arakaki for a term to expire 6 30 2024 recommendation the chair consent chair votes i chair votes eye on governor's message 794 madam chair i will be voting with reservations i will give them the benefit of doubt but i still had some concern based on his answers so that any other member voting with reservations any other member voting with negative if not hearing none
045four members president your president voting in the affirmative recommendations adopted thank you that concludes this hearing you