001good afternoon thank you for joining us for our informational briefing this is monday april 5th we are in conference room 229 it's three o'clock the committee on education and the informational briefing is to look at the governor's education emergency relief funds gear and the department of education's plan to address learning loss for students so do we have who do we have from the governor's office kim good afternoon this is kim from the governor's office uh and also with me is garrett yoshini from the university of hawaii who is also here to answer to some of the points as well as steve tristegi who is our project manager who can also answer some of the questions to the specific thank you kim would you guys proceed with your uh your powerpoint is that what you're doing
002yes please go ahead you may begin okay thank you and uh good afternoon uh cherokee donnie vice chair kim members of the committee thank you so much for this opportunity to share with you information on the governor's emergency education relief fund as stated and i'll just stated here again for the record i am kim sparling director of intergovernmental relations and policy in the office of the governor also with me today is garrett yoshini vice president information technology and chief information officer with the university of hawaii who is one of the recipients of the funds and steve trustege who's our project manager before i get too far into it i also want to thank those that were members of the advisory group that helped develop this plan as well as mr dara galera who is instrumental
003in bringing that group together he developed a group that's really well balanced and we'll show you that here after we go through some of the high level details and also keeps them engaged throughout this process so when i say those thank you um just real quick real quick overview of what the gear funds were for those that are not aware if the purpose of them is to provide local educational agencies institutions of higher learning and other educational related entities with assistance to address the impact that the coronavirus has had this is part of the cares act funding and it is in addition to other funding that was given to educational for educational purposes as many of you are aware there was several chances of money that were given directly to the department of education as
004well as the university of white and their roles as our ihe our institution of higher learning and our fda which is the state educational agency and learning a lot of the nuance between all of these different components and how hawaii is very unique compared with the rest of the continental united states and and a lot of negotiations that we get to have with us doing because of that the one big difference in this funding is it really was set aside for the discretion of the governor um and doesn't have some of the same requirements that general money go that other money that went directly to the doe and the ihds had so just real high level look here and there's two tranches of gear so in year one back in april of 2020 we were
005awarded just over 9.3 or 9.9 just under 10 million 10 million dollars um that has been awarded and we'll go through the breakdown of how that's going to be spent and then earlier this year uh another chance of money came out so there's another 4.4 almost 4.5 million that was awarded in february um and then i'm going to put a little asterisk here because of the way that this will then impact the gear ones potentially later on in august um there was an emergency appropriation for non-public schools about 9.8 million dollars that went directly to the department of education to administer on behalf of those non-public schools any money that is not spent from those funds will then revert to the gear fund so it's not money that we have right now we don't know
006what that money is we won't even know if that's something that will happen until august so i wanted to throw that out there as well um the governor is required to award these funds as eligible entities within one year of receiving them so real quick we'll have a timeline here in a second but just wanted to talk about the prohibited uses of these funds as well they can't go to administrative costs executive costs those kind of things they are to go to the schools they must include support for remote learning which was you know the biggest impact obviously that we all saw through this pandemic and the governor has the discretion like i said to to deploy these plans so the timing wanted to put them side by side so everybody can see how these
007get laid out uh the year one was certified back in april of 2020 year 2 was an automatic certification with the eams being a separate one that we had descended certification for and that was done in february the award notification came up a little bit later than that a little bit later than that certification for the the phase one funding wasn't uh applicable for phase two in june of 2020 we conducted several advisory group meetings we'll talk about those in a little bit to come up with a plan that was then submitted to the usdoe in july of 2020. it took them a little while to go through that as you can imagine going through 54 different plans took them a little while to go through it and get back to us a couple of
008emails couple of qualifications to make sure that we're all on the same page um in the language we are required to award the funds that's not to be confused with obligated and spent in contract and all that stuff but award the funds no later than april 15 2021. for year two that is january of 2022 uh and right now it's just a january date that's just thrown out there there's no guidance beyond january um and that ties back to the the uh award period and then they have the funds for year one have to be obligated by september 30th 2022. so we've got some time um we had some time not only to award them but then also some time for those ones to be obligated and then for the year two funds they need
009to be obligated no later than september 2023. all right um so as i mentioned you know we put together an advisory group daryl galera led the charge on this and one again thank again thank those that were on this advisory group who devoted time away from their normal duties their pandemic duties uh and jumped on the phone a couple times during the month of june to help us really inform this plan and they have agreed to be an ongoing resource so as you can see from the group there's a balanced representation of higher and lower education as well as public private and charter schools including down to the principal level of several k through 12 schools across the state it was very deliberate that we had voices from again higher lower private public kindergarten through
01012 and make sure that all of those voices were heard as you guys are really well aware of each school and community that it serves is unique and we wanted to make sure that this group was diverse and represented that that widespread view and those widespread means so that was really deliberate when we put we put that group together um the usdoe directions said that we had the opportunity to truly rethink education think outside the box so in june governor convened the group and fourthly convened the group and charged the group with rethinking and transforming their approach to education due to the impact of the pandemic themselves on june 16th his message to the group included things like this pandemic is changing hawaii and every organization needs to reinvent itself in the post folded 19
011environment hopefully these emergency funds can do all of those things they can plug gaps that are necessary and can provide incentives and fund organizations and schools that are doing innovative things that both trans uh that both respond to the pandemic and most importantly set a course for educational change and reform so as you can see the charge to the group was not just put a band-aid on it we really want to look at how we can bounce forward from this pandemic and provide some tools and resources to our agencies and our educators so that they can have an ongoing benefit from this and it's not just a one-time influx of cash that that solves one problem this is an ongoing solution so the advisory group um set up you know after initial discussions of where
012everybody was coming from and what uh their experiences were really set themselves around the criteria to use the form the funds to build on the shared vision of you know thousands and thousands of educators parents teachers community members that developed and embraced the 2017 hawaii blueprint for education that was very much a stepping off point for this group i wanted to continue work that had already been done and make sure that we were not going back to recreating the wheel but take some ideas that had already been thrown out and maybe not addressed and take this opportunity to address them another criteria was to aspire for innovation and reinvention with the understanding that every organization needs to reinvent itself in the post-spoken 19 environment as governor had charged and then finally to be bold and
013future focused to set a course for educational change and reform that results in both relief and sustainability so those are the core principles that the group settled around throughout the discussions with the group it became clear that while every community is unique and every student is unique there were some commonalities amongst them it became clear that the most significant impact of the coronavirus on schools is the negative impact on student engagement and learning as a result of i'm going to go through a litany of the list that the group threw out in our discussions so the first two obviously i think this committee and several others have had many conversations around the lack of access to and the availability of devices and technology for the students directly especially for the most vulnerable students and the
014families in you know those areas that needed additional support and the lack of connectivity for that remote instruction so it doesn't matter if we can teach them if they can't get to it that's a problem as you know there was 39 million dollars that governor gave to the department of education to help address some of this another one that became really really clear early that the group kind of kind of grasped onto um and we'll talk about that a little bit more in detail later is the need for the parent or guardian training because even if we could get the devices to them they were finding that some of the the support at home that was anticipated wasn't necessarily there so things like being able to troubleshoot when the microphones not working you know how
015to get into the right zoom link and what do you do when you have three different teachers and three different uh methods so really talking about a parent or guardian training to support the remote instruction of the children so that's one thing that we want to highlight another one and this wasn't just in hawaii was the need to improve the quality of revolt instruction resulting from the abrupt transition you know due to the emergency that being the need for professional development for faculty staff school leaders that can all help improve the teaching practices for engaging students in the distance learning environment also talking about the need for resources including professional development for faculty staff and school leaders to address the emotional learning needs of the students and then of course i think again this committee
016as well as many others talked about the urgent need for safety equipment materials and resources for opening the schools and there was much of that funding that came through care other care's funding so we chose that yes that was a priority but was being addressed a little bit quicker in other areas we talked about the professional development and even the state of kentucky recognized this so i just wanted to call this out real quick is some of the research research that we did for this group they were also looking at professional development for their schools and their education their department of education and so it's just a highlight you know it's not just us uh we're we're we're all struggling through this um as a nation so to get into the plant elements themselves we
017just wanted to break it down a little bit here and i'm gonna kick off to a couple other people as we go through this to answer some more specific questions um but we talked a lot about you know helping the teachers you know educate the educator and train the trainer and so uh 5 million dollars was committed to this distance learning teacher academy that is being run through the university of hawaii they are developing the curriculum the education design and then will then turn that into educational opportunities for our educators so many of us know that our educators spend a lot of their money and their a lot of their time bettering themselves and this is one way that we can support them so before i go on too far i want to open it
018up to garrett to add a little bit more of where we are with this program in the last few months and just give you an overview thanks gail appreciate it um cherokee donnie what's good nice to be members of the community thanks for the opportunity this is um this is a really great opportunity to execute an investment in our both our public and our as well as our private school teachers um in the park in the pre-k through 12 range and the the project is is all about creating both the strategies as well as the methods of delivery to develop curriculum specifically tailored to deliver online so that we can deliver the maximum benefit to the to the kids in our community this is about creating both new ways as well as streamlining existing ways
019or existing methods of delivering curriculum it is about curriculum development and it it is an investment in that it both um is professional development for the teachers and this is specifically targeted at public divided in k-12 as well as creating an open educational resource essentially a free and open resource for for not only the teachers that have gone through the training but for all teachers from throughout the state of hawaii to take advantage of the materials developed as a result of the program the effort in this particular project has wrapped up through the fall as in terms of being able to organize on the leadership around the leadership includes representatives not only from the university of hawaii from the department of education the hawaii associate association of independent schools and represents both public and private
020teacher and institutional interests across the state of hawaii we have focused on a couple of delivery windows so the primary delivery of these resources and these this work will happen over the summer of 21 and summer of 22 leading up to both of those summer academies will be activities in the spring of 21 now and the spring of 22 to to kind of determine and best recruit the number of a lot of interested folks from across these different communities create a bunch of interest determine where the both the interest as well as the needs are in terms of developing curriculum and to the best extent be able to deliver that in the summers the approach in the summer going into the summer of 21 is to hit as many of these high-value topics as possible
021and then looking at the summer of 22 to be able to scale further in the areas that um are of the highest interest and that we can create the best the best value in terms of creating curriculum that's reusable on a going forward basis the outcome of the project is not only skills development but it's also to create this repository of free and open materials that can be used and be used well across all of our all of our public and private institutions happy to answer any other questions if you have at this time thank you garrett and the chair if you don't mind we'll leave questions to the end because i want to get through the next pieces um you know real quick so that we can have that ongoing kind of interrelated dialogue
022and you can see how these various pieces mesh together so um the next largest tranche of money is four million dollars to innovation grants and this is going to be functioned through the rcuh for a couple of reasons one is if we give the money directly to the department of education there's an equity of service component there were a lot of lawsuits at the back last year between things that betsy devos at the time was saying what normally happens with equity of services there's also some limitations on then how that can then be spent so we felt that it would be best not to necessarily go directly to the department of education but run it as a true grant program through our cuh so that the charter schools and the private schools can come in
023uh with a with a more level playing field so to speak when it comes to money not not innovation but when it comes to the money component of it and so it will be run through the rcuh and it's going to be informed by a lot of the work that uh is doing right now in this distance learning academy and then some other dialogues that steve cersegi is having with stakeholders with our office with the advisory board group and then a few other select folks from that that advisory board group that have just been a little bit more engaged so that that's another portion that's a large portion of it um we looked and and i apologize i neglected to forward my screen so i apologize for that so this is that four million dollars
024um it's to provide a relief for some of the forced distance learning that had to happen the emphasis will be on digital equity for access and connectivity as well as effective ways to deliver parent education parent training family support innovative practices for global learner outcomes and ultimately what the teachers can do in the classroom so it's a little bit a little bit bigger than this but as you can see we're looking for larger lump sum brands and so not the here because the teacher wants you know this kind of a platform or a certain kind of tool or anything like that we're really looking for these to be complex areas building collaborations between schools complexes different levels of the education so you're looking from your elementary transition up to your middle school transition from your
025middle school up to your high school and where all of those things can really tie together so again that's the reason of coursing the larger lump sum forcing more innovative thought processes and more collaborative solutions rather than one-off uh just immediately in the classroom kind of need so that's the innovation grants we talked a little bit about the impact that the group was seeing on parents and the support or the lack of support that they were seeing from the family and so right now there's a hundred thousand dollars put out there for this community of practice we initially called it a network improvement community that got a little wonky and a little scary so it's really just about um a support network for the parents themselves so right now that's at about a hundred thousand
026dollars department of education is doing some things around this area as well with all centers we don't want to again double spillable efforts i want to make sure that we're utilizing the money in the best way possible another thing that the university is doing that i think is really interesting and the governor's really proud of is this transition assistance for high school students um and again i'm going to kick it back to garrett to talk about this but i think we've all recognized that our four seniors from last year and this year aren't having that normal junior senior transition up into the college experience and so uh university of hawaii raised their hand and stepped in and said hey we want to help them out with this so i'll let garrett speak to that a
027little bit more thanks kim this particular one is directly focused on the graduating classes of 21 and 22 to provide access are you showing up to govern already sorry say that again senator favela did you have a question oh i'm sorry i'm sorry can you mute your mic please i'm sorry go ahead so the early engagement one is all about direct focus on providing support for the graduating classes of 21 and 22 public high school students and this is really about trying to help them bridge the um the change between their high school experience and to get them engaged in both interest of and directly taking the age classes so it provides the grant funds provide access to freelance courses as well as advising and support in particular over the summer period between their graduation
028from public high school and then going into hopefully going into a into a higher education program is you know again we're hopeful they'll they'll join us at the university of hawai'i but this is really about getting them into into some um useful and engaging way to get them into higher education thank you garrett appreciate that um last two components here real quick and then we'll be ready for questions um you know it doesn't do us any good to learn a whole bunch of things and then not have something left behind for the next the next time hopefully this never happens again but the next opportunity for remote learning um so we want to conduct an educational summit it will be held virtually as of right now um but this will be based off of some
029of that innovation some of this distance learning and then culminate in this virtual summit that will be available open in uh to educators um so that the lessons learned are not just contained to those that are in the immediate experience you know that we're able to open and share this uh with with anyone and everyone right at the point appropriate and you know it doesn't have to be just within our own shores it can be extended beyond our shores and and this can also bring things into our shores that maybe we haven't seen before as well so we're excited about this virtual summit that again will happen as part of part of threading all of these lessons learned together and the last component to this um that that holds all of this together will be
030this innovation team that will help uh design and and stand up that virtual summit because there's a lot of work to that we know our education educators are busy uh we want the information from them but somebody needs to do the work to put it together but this this innovation team will help keep those lessons moving make sure that uh you know you hear something over here somebody's having a problem but maybe you've heard a solution on the other side and bring those together and then you know provide lessons up you know what can be changed what can we do to make this better and again thread all of those lessons together so that they're not just disparate effort but there really is a continuity to all of this and so um those are the
031components to it i can go back you know in order to facilitate some of this discussion i can go back to the the um the plan elements if you like but i'd also like to just go ahead and share is what we hand it out to you there are some additional resources if you want to get into the super fun nitty-gritty components of what these different pieces of funding and what the different requirements are that's also in your powerpoint for your information wanted to share it on screen in case anybody wants to take a screenshot and and have those resources as well but if sheriff if you'd like i i'm happy to go back to the plan element and then open it up to discussion and questions okay we have about 15 minutes before we
032can move on to our next um uh presenter for our next item but uh kim um can we just start with questions now thank you members questions done senator kim hi kim good afternoon um i had a question about these funds that you're targeting to rcuh so are you anticipating what the cost is and how much is left over to actually run these programs or uh yes um so uh and rsuh has been very gracious um and the indirect costs are 132 000 on the 4.393 million quote on 132 000 there's about 3.1 percent now is that from both rch and uh uh that's just the rcuh portion uh garrett curriculum times wrong i think you guys went at five percent um we it's it's a mixture so it's ten percent of the direct cost
033which turns out to be about four and a half percent of the total it's two and a half thousand out of five a little higher because there's the other 600 000 but it's um only on direct costs and it's the 10 rate so the blended rate comes down to a little under 5 okay yeah so the university takes a percentage rch takes a percentage and then the left the money's left is rch go out and they hire people to to implement these programs is that what is that the motto excuse me so what will happen is there is a project manager steve who's on the line here um that will oversee that the innovation grants themselves will be run through him and several members of the advisory group that have volunteered to continue that uh
034on um so there's not necessarily a cost there um it's that four million that'll that'll be going out just just under four million that'll be going out yes so the part for the virtual summit part of the innovation team coordination and the parent network the the parent and family network will then also be contracted out um but i mean there's there's we only we only get so much money right so when we go to contract out they know that whatever it's going to be this is the bottom line you know so if it's uh we need a virtual summit for you know fifty thousand they're gonna get fifty thousand they've gotta figure out their own taxes they've gotta figure out their own ui they gotta figure out all that stuff on their own so under
035the governor's innovation team it's 150 000 going to rch to to manage this i guess i'm having a hard time understanding why you're running it through rcuh because again university will take a cost off the top and so will rcuh and um you know i'm not sure this innovation team basically is going to design the virtual summit but the virtual summit has an additional fifty thousand dollars and this one is 150. so can you guys give us the breakdown on these costs i mean it's easy to just say we're going to run it to rcuh but have you looked at what other up opportunities are there uh part of it was expediency you know being able to get them get it get it moving and not have to set up new budget costs and budget
036goals and those kind of things but i can definitely send a breakdown to the group of how exactly where every penny is going to go yeah because just because this is um federal funds doesn't necessarily mean we're just going to expend the money the most expedient way and maybe not the most efficient way appreciate that thank you so kim all of the funds uh for the first gear grant of 9.9 million has gone to either uh or rcuh and that's it only those two entities as the initial awardees and then they will be sub granted out although depending on who you talk to which which term you use uh can change but they'll eventually be subcontracted our sub awarded out the um the gear one monies was received a year ago in april 2020 it
037was awarded a year ago and then we just draw down as expenses come out as laid out in contract so can you can you give me um actual activities that have happened since we were awarded this monies so the programs that you've talked about have they started already has the distance learning teacher academy started already and how many teachers have been served in this distance learning teacher academy so kim let me answer that one so the of the initial activity through this spring will be primarily around a handful of teachers but more about organizing for this summer so we're putting together both levels of interest from the community of public and private teachers and then looking to the two summer programs in 21 and 22 for the primary delivery to teachers i believe the spring
038activities are serving a number of relatively small groups so on the order of a few dozen teachers but the real focus is to deliver the both of the um the teacher activities for both professional development as well as curriculum development in the two summers um to give you an idea of perspective so the bulk of the grant monies in the in the teacher academy cases actually go for participant stipends so to make sure that the um the teachers are some of their costs are offset as they work through the summer on list about 2.3 million 2.4 million is actually set aside for direct stipend payments to the teachers that participate in the academies as well as for any faculty time that needs to be or faculty for the academies that need to be compensated for
039to run the academies themselves so the teachers are getting stipends to participate in these classes that's correct that's correct because these are typically multiple weeks over the summer and and you know for for a lot of the teachers a lot of their summer activities is where they either do professional development or other activities or other um other teacher activities on their own which is how they supplement their income over the summer because they're not they're not compensated during the summer period so the stipends will offset the fact that they aren't um they aren't working with those periods at the same time so the grant awarded it was probably too late to help any learning loss type activities for the last school year but for this school year with your distance learning teacher academy how many
040teachers have actually taken the program or is this an ongoing program that they do more than once i'm not can you can you kind of lay out the program for me so the primary activity the program is going to be workshops over the summer where the teachers participate in both the professional development as well as development of the curriculum then just for from a budgetary purpose summer institute stipends for between two and three hundred students on each summer so that's the direct um number of teachers that we serve if we are able to and it's it's looking pretty good from the partnership point of view in terms of of having um faculty and external folks participate uh so here's a good example we're working with the folks at noaa because that's actually part of their
041outreach um programs that they're funded to do this stuff but they're having they need to be able to engage effectively with our public and private school teachers so the important thing for us is to make sure that we bring together folks with content folks that have the ability to deliver content as well as our teachers to get them up to speed to be able to not only have the right strategies to to best use some of this curriculum but also be able to develop it and then create this repository so it can be used further the idea is that starting as frankly starting in the fall so this is fall of 21 directly after the summer academies we'll be able to see some of those products actually in use on you know the home so
042are you saying that to answer my question zero teachers have had this have taken this academy yet the academies are under development for the summer summer 21. okay that kind of bothers me a lot i mean we got the award over a year ago we are in the pandemic now um the teachers need this uh learning academy now but we're going to wait till the summer is there a reason is this is this like a whole week's course is this a day course these are two to four weeks so these are um there aren't those concentrated times where they can spend on full time for two to four weeks going through these programs so the summer is the ideal opportunity um so it's really important for us to make sure that we're prep going into
043the summer with the right um both the right cohorts as well as the right faculty i know we've had other opportunities weekends we've had holidays we had spring break people staying home not working at all i mean i'm just i guess i'm flabbergasted that the purpose of this by the time you put it into action the you know my wish is that the pandemic will be over by then but um i i just they think that we have taken too long on this um can i follow up on that sure in addition to that by the time this summer comes around are you are they developing this going forward because the pandemic certainly has changed everything and by summer things will be different and i'm not saying there's going to be a new norm so
044will it's being developed now but is it going to be effective for the following school years yeah the idea is in fact to make sure that the curricular are effective for for both um in person as well as hybrid delivery but it's really focusing on the the changes that are um that are necessary for either hybrid or online delivery and this is the and again this is the focus of trying to get concentrated um time together with cohorts of teachers um to get the curriculum developed and then to get it get to get the strategies and approaches set so that it's not only trained the trainer but it's also the development of the curricular itself that can be used instead a going forward basis and one of the principles is free and open curriculum so
045it's not like it's developed and then somebody has to pay again to use it later on it's developed and paid for by by federal funds and state efforts and it really should be for the benefit of the community so how many teachers again i'm sorry that's going to be covered under this program so we're looking for between two and 300 teachers to be involved with the program every summer um we're actually hoping to get it over subscribed so that you know we will be we will we can take out basically take all comers that are willing to to participate in the workshop activities and so the stipends that set aside will cover for two to three hundred teachers great summer correct that's part of the budget for each summer each summer so this is going
046not just this summer but the following summer right so we're funded for the summer of 21 and the summer of 22. so the curriculum in 22 is going to be different from 21. so the curriculum at 22 will build on the efforts of 21. in some cases we may be able to be able to scale to larger groups by repeating on the existing successes of creating curricula but also we expect to learn from the experience of the summer of 21 and frankly the following fall and spring to see what we can do to create more effective programs going forward okay my final question madam chair um what about the measurements or return on investment how are you folks why are you folks measuring that so the primary outputs of the of the workshops are going
047to be curriculum and programs develop and those will be um or those will be contained and served out of a out of a central repository that will be available from from the public so those that's the primary um outcome that we will measure as a result of the delivery it's also the number of participants through the programs both in our educational outreach as well as the actual workshops themselves and then we'll look to um as part of the of the following efforts in the fall of 21 and 22 look to evaluate the success or failures frankly the successes of the efforts that have gone on to create this curriculum through the through the initial summer program so you're not going to know the effectiveness of these curriculum and programs developed until it gets implemented in
048the school year right and if it turns out that it's not effective is that how you're measuring it well the programs will be um so the programs will be innovative and they will they will create and they will be created by teachers for use by teachers so you know where we we will have to see how the programs work in implementation but the programs will be developed in the core curriculum will be developed by the groups that have both the experience as well as the expertise in those areas okay thank you so um have all of the the grant funds for year one been awarded ken uh the final contract for rcuh uh is is brought in first signature we held off a little bit because of that timing and because this timing is such
049that we want the grants to for the innovation to the schools and the complexes to come out based on some of the education that we're learning through uh's effort we didn't want to get too ahead of the game and sign that contract too early and then and then force ourselves into a corner and so we wanted to uh make sure that we had the best opportunity to get the best responses to those brands that are robust and and innovative and forward-thinking and can continue you know beyond just the covenant response to a hurricane response when you know kids roads are blocked and they can't get to school or a lava flow or you know things like that that this is not just the one and done with hovid this is about distance learning completely you
050know and and how our teachers and how our schools can support those students beyond just this clothing pandemic [Music] that's true there is no risk of any money having to go back that's that's true but again let me emphasize that we are on the second year of students who have been impacted and this governor's emergency education relief fund i you know i want you guys to remember it's an emergency relief fund and we are in emergency now has anyone yet benefited from these funds teachers students i mean besides giving the funds to rcuh in uh to to do the programs has anyone directly received any benefit from this it's been a year now so i'm just asking uh senator so the answer is not yet um and the second part of that answer is there's
051quite a bit of work that's going on to make sure that we are delivering coming out the door as soon as some as soon as we get to the summer so there's a bunch of prep as well as screening and hiring effort that's going on for these advisors and for the curriculum and for the for the workshop participants in preparation for the summer so that is right around the corner for us but to answer your question there are there have not been funds directly expended as yet to um to deliver directly to you okay that's kind of disheartening i mean i know you guys are probably doing the best you can but i still find it disheartening because it is an emergency education relief fund and to date i don't think any of our students
052have had any emergency relief um you know a few years ago we had the the essa task force which uh daryl galera led and back then they talked about some of the things that we have discussed today including the digital divide and the need for digital devices the need for interconnectivity do you guys know yet how many students are without digital devices or interconnectivity has even that study been made you know i'm gonna um i'm gonna defer that to the next uh the next section i understand department of education is coming on um and part of the reason that we chose not to go down that path with these funds one is it's really a somewhat small amount of funds if you're looking at the number of students and the cost there but there was
05339 million dollars of the cash funds that was given to doe to help with that device and that connectivity issue so i'm going to defer to them for the details a little bit more on that if you don't mind sure well i've asked them before and i've not gotten a clear answer so okay senator favela i don't know if you're still on but did you have questions i guess not can i ask the final question sure um it'd be interesting to find out from you folks what you've learned in this last year regarding these kinds of emergency funds so if it should happen again and you get emergency funds what things would you do differently so you can get these benefits to the students because we have a whole graduating class who's graduating in may
054and not benefit from these emergency funds and um you know and they're the ones most impacted so it i i share the concerns that the chair has raised and i hope you folks have learned something from this and find ways that we can utilize the emergency funds and get it to the students in a more efficient manner thank you if i could just briefly there are as kit mentioned there are other sources of funds that you know while some of the lead times especially for the of the private department foundations have taken a little bit longer to ramp up there has been activity occurring to support in particular the folk the kids that graduated last year um to try and also help them bridge them into the community college system as well as the leading
055system in general so i understand that part but i think the part of the learning in the classroom and learning distancely i think they've been a lot of complaints about that from parents and students they don't feel that the students really have been educated in the way they should have and so um yeah it's one thing to help them you know after the fact but what about during so um i hope we learn something from this and don't repeat these mistakes again because you know the new norm might be that these kinds of things will happen again that's quite well taken thank you there's a um some kind of forum being planned i'm sorry i can't remember i read that comment yeah the summit when is that going to be has a date been set
056for that that'll that'll be next year because it's going to be informed by the efforts that uh are doing the innovation grant bringing those grant awardees together to share what they have done and what they've accomplished and so it's really a 2022 possibly spring grade kind of 2022 event is what um the discussions have been around uh but again that's why it was kind of phased in the way that it was what about the summer transition to college is that helping is that absolutely absolutely and in fact i think um i think steve schatz who's the head of the 21 and 20 graduates say that again i didn't hear it it's specifically focused on the providing not only access to some free uh courses over the summer but also on college advising and support um
057so they're actually in the um that that program is in the midst of of hiring advisors and customers to help and to assist the 21 graduates this summer as they head into hopefully college activities in the fall so have have the students been notified this is the activity we did in the past summer with separate funding activity to try and give a leg up to the chair we'll get you a outreach plan another okay one more question i'm confused on this virtual summit sharing opportunity okay so we're spending how much money so we can have lessons shared lessons oh that shows 50 000 50 000 but also you're saying that some of these other monies where innovation grant was used to prep for the innovation and the and then the governor's innovation team hundred fifty
058thousand that's awesome you know that kind of thing um the the innovation and but that money will everybody as a virtual client so fifty thousand dollars for the virtual summit and that and then the 150 000 for the governor's innovation team is isn't that you to prep up for the how much is being spent for what what are the fees taken out and what's left can you guys get that to us thank you thank you kim how the department plans on meeting the twenty percent of the gay five students who meet who need remediation services and the timeline for doing so um so with us to testify is dr kishimoto the superintendent department of education aloha and good afternoon chair kadani vice chairman start with a data point from the last presentation i reported at
059the board meeting in january that two percent of our students approximately 3 400 students have are in our device gap that means we're meeting uh and have rarified that we have met 98 of the device demands and for connectivity which we also track it's at 2.6 connectivity and so we've been able to look at reasons for both the connectivity and the device gap usually it's because students had a device it wasn't sufficient it's not connecting it broke it's aged and so a refresh program is something we'll continue to focus on so i just wanted to mention that the question was asked about that data point uh so again i'm christina kishimoto superintendent of the hawaii state department of education and i'm going to present on the proposal to address learning lawsuits to the covet 19
060pandemic and mahalo for the questions chair to help frame our presentation today following this presentation i have deputy superintendent rumor sami my assistant superintendents and a team of hazards who are also available to answer questions including complex air superintendent chad joni marias bob davis and they can give more insight to the planning being done statewide if you go to the next slide on slide two the american rescue plan which authorizes sr3 was signed into law march 11 2021. on march 24th of 2021 the department received 274.8 million or two-thirds of the sr3 funds with the remaining one-third being withheld pending submission and approval of the department's plan for the use of the funds and meeting the conditions for funding the application is due 45 days after it's released it has not been issued yet total
061sf3 funds to be used to address learning loss is a minimum requirement of 103 million dollars based on lea and sca responsibilities there are three components which define this one is that lea is required to a lot 20 of the s3 funds we receive for learning loss so for hawaii that would be 74.2 million at the sca or state education level we're required to unlock five percent of total as the three funds for learning lots to carry out directly or through grants or contracts implementation of evidence evidence-based intervention so that's estimated at 20.6 obligation in addition to this 5 set-aside sdas are required to unlock one percent for evidence-based summer enrichment programs and another one for evidence-based comprehensive after-school programs uh so that will amount to about 8.2 million for summer enrichment and after school
062programs the total is 103 million that's required to be allocated towards learning loss hawaii is a single sda lea the only state in the nation thus we need to be sure to meet the requirements that are stated in the law of both the sda and the lea we're also obligated to provide the charter schools with their fair share of funds that we receive as an sca and as an lea go to slide 3 the essa funds for learning loss must provide for the social emotional and academic needs of our students especially our students who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemics such as our students from low-income families students receiving special ed services english learners and students with unstable housing which also learned a lot about the impact of the pandemic on our most rural students
063as well we are planning to implement summer learning programs extended learning opportunities at after school programs as part of the learning loss mitigation and recovery plan as you will see in the presentation the department's tri-level leadership has been approaching learning loss through a stacked services model to implement the array of reliable uses for academic learning social emotional learning supports mental health services and supports to motivate students to be part of their learning community and other services which act as social safety networks such as transportation and some of the to increase student access to schools on slide four as we developed a plan for the use of sf3 learning loss funds we need to consider the requirements tied to the funding the allowable uses of the funds we received are outlined in the legislation safely returning
064to in-person instruction stakeholder input which includes students families civil rights organizations disability rights organizations school administrators educators and unions and the submission of an application outlining our plan for the sf3 funds are requirements of the american rescue plan act on slide five you'll see that the department previously shared learning loss mitigation strategies at the informational briefing in january prior to the american rescue plan being enacted learning law strategies include returning students to our campus for more in-person instruction summer programs specialized student support programs accelerated personalized learning program and on-campus and off-campus learning opportunities such as internships career explorations and athletics for students work groups are being organized and have been organized planned for learning loss as well as for distance learning one of the individuals that's on the panel and available for questions is kyone
065careers he along with teacher of the year former teacher of the year matthew williams are co-chairing our review of our distance learning plan that we use this year what what did we learn that worked well what did not work well so that we plan appropriately for next year and on their committee are a number of teachers and administrators we go to slide six uh just a quick summary on the 2021 summer learning program the summer learning framework which we are using for planning provides guidance for schools as they plan summer programs based on their student needs and estimated costs programs are prioritized for graduating seniors students who are academically behind students in transition grades such as incoming kindergarten elementary to middle middle to high school and high school to college or career and identify students
066with engagement challenges due to the pandemic of which each school principal and team carefully tracks those students with engagement challenges slide seven it's going to go over some programs and activities to mitigate and remediate learning loss we have ramped up in-person learning opportunities for fourth quarter our cases principals and school staff have done tremendous work to welcome back most students to a full in-person model for the elementary schools the middle and high schools have also made efforts to increase secondary students for full in-person or blended learning schools have been focused on monitoring seniors on their progress to graduate using longitudinal data systems and providing support for post-secondary plans whether that's community college trade four-year college military and so forth we are also providing opportunities for students to ramp up in the areas of talent and
067interest by offering workout and conditioning after school theater and music programming we believe this is essential for students who may need motivation to come to school in person go to slide eight opportunities for summer learning include official summer school at 17 sites including e-school school learning hubs at various sites in the complex areas there are plans for 212 school learning hubs in all 15 complexes or cross of 15 complexes 132 at the elementary level 36 at the middle intermediate 32 at the high school level and 11 schools with multiple grade levels and one community school for adult programs are focused on credit recovery credit advancement enrichment remediation transmission transition or intervention we also have a summer scott kindergarten transition program high school sports camps early college courses a doe summer internship program for vice rising
068and graduating seniors we had this last year and had a very successful first year of our internship program and next steps to your future for class which is the summer advising and personalized counseling support and uhcc career exploration classes various specialized student support programs are also offered to meet the needs of our students in special education english learner services and students in alternative learning programs schools also have the option to request funds to pay counsellors and social workers during the summer for additional support it will actually be looking at uh and and talking with the border bed about setting up or targeting part of our federal relief funds for and to increase our counselors particularly those working during the transition grades to reduce the student to counselor ratios during these next two years superintendent superintendent
069i'm sorry we have 25 minutes left and i still have to get to the board of education can you go quickly over the next few slides so that we can get to questions please yes that question on slide nine uh for four opening of schools uh the the planning before opening schools is also the beginning uh so principals and teachers can plan together as i mentioned our elementary schools have been opening which also helps to form preparation for in-person learning we are visiting elementary schools over these next few weeks to support schools today i was at iliahi elementary with principal yukumoto and cass davis and these visits really help with seeing the differences between schools and what the school principals need slide 10 i just want to mention that we continue to have a data
070dashboard with learning loss metrics course marks high risk attendance off track to graduation social emotional learning the hm tss all of those data points are there and available for the public slide 11 we also have been tracking quarter by quarter how students are progressing with their grades grades are grades and attendance are critical metrics for progress of students and so each quarter we see students are doing uh increasingly uh better in completing their cost requirements but there's a lot of support needed and we do see a delta or a disparity between where students are today in quarter four as we get in quarter four as compared to last year go to the next slide slide 12 high risk attendance is one of the critical measures as i mentioned and so we'll be looking at students
071who are at risk or already have entered the risk of 15 or more days missed for in-person instruction if you look at the next measure on slide that is the off track to graduate that's another measure to look at again each quarter we have more seniors meeting graduation requirements or credit requirements and so we are in a better place each quarter but that's support that we need to continue to provide if you go to slide 14 you see that we are also tracking students who are receiving special education services we schools have made tremendous efforts to support students as of march 27 2021 92 of students receiving special education services have had an iep meeting held this year to discuss support to address learning laws and so there's a whole array of services there heidi
072armstrong a.s armstrong is on with us and can answer questions related to special education students i will mention that we have have been prioritizing students receiving special ed services on campus since the start of the school year slide this slide provides a summary of data on mental health support provided during quarter two it really focuses on the provision of services for identified 504 and ibea students we continue to track again our mental health supports and again uh a.s armstrong can answer questions related to that and i will uh wrap up with the next slide and just thank you uh for the opportunity to provide some details again you have a team of asses and compensation superintendents available to answer questions tomorrow chair thank you superintendent that was um informational and i appreciate the slides and
073the data within here i have a few questions that i wanted to talk about to ask so for will there be overall consistency in all the learning loss programs offered at each school or and i you know for for summer or will this be specific schools in complex areas so we have some schools that and let me know if i'm answering the wrong question we have certain schools that are small or have uh staffing challenges and they are partnering up with other schools so there are groups of schools providing summer school in the closest hub school so two or three schools may be working together but there's over 200 schools that are providing at their school sites some are offering so many of our schools will be providing a number of options at their school
074site or at the nearest school as a partnership program thank you will elective courses be offered during summer or only required courses so there's a number of opportunities both for credit recovery for key required courses and core content errors but there are also courses that are enrichment enhancement or courses to get ahead on whether credits or areas of interest such as a robotics program or a stem program or a music program so we want the whole array of offspring and that's what schools are being encouraged to look at in their offerings thank you so will counselors be working during the summer to assist um post-secondary options for the college enrollment or assist with uh financial aid yes so we are already recruiting and started early with that recruitment even before the summer program is fully
075implemented because we need we need that support of counselors for students how do they assist those students that may have had hopes for athletic scholarships and and athletics did not happen this year how do they help those students so there are a number of areas of support uh whether that's if students need to videotape their practice or their performance uh athletic directors and athletic staff are providing those supports so it's you know it's by school depending on what students need we have opened up our gyms and our weight rooms for conditioning in our fields and so we work hand in hand our counselors work hand-in-hand with the colleges uh whether the student is ready to graduate or is trying to lead up to a uh a a scholarship if the student has a scholarship and
076there are specific needs the student comes with that documentation for what they need and it's either the athletic team that's leading that depending what that is or its accounts were at the school site they are all working they are all on board yes um so for the students who are graduating seniors this year that are involved in athletics are there opportunities for them to participate in co-curricular activities if any that are going to be offered during the summer so i if you don't mind i i want you to hear from one of the causes i know uh deesa hoggy is on and so is chad carrera so or bob davis one of you can unview and just talk from the school level what you're doing to provide the support for our athletic our athletes student
077athletes aloha this is disa from nanakuli um at waianae high school sorry yes at waianae high school um spring training so to speak has started we're following all the guidelines so we don't have any contact sports going on yet um once um once the guidance is loosened up somewhat there will be more activities but as superintendents stated the primary support we're providing to kids right now is support in helping them acquire any documentation they need to help them um use their route of athletics into college thank you lisa um aloha ed on the big guy and i would say about the same for kkp and and stretched across on hawaii island mostly training and then individualized supports um the 80s have been fantastic and pushing on us to try to get more openings but about
078the same thanks county have um so is this going to be not just for athletics what about for um those students who want to be music majors or arts are those activities also being opened up for for band members or yeah go ahead i'll just say this is kyoni again i've been to a couple of concerts on hawaii island had to sit in my car um and listen to the hilo intermediate one and i was able to see keau perform in person but people have been very creative um here on huawei island thank you yeah this is this is bob davis um similarly our schools have been actually um having their after school practices and such making sure you know they use their outdoor areas space themselves following all guidelines but i know all three
079high schools have been engaged for quite some time with their uh music students so they too can you know enjoy their enrichment activities and many of them do pursue that for college as well so we're very pleased that they had opened up thank you bob appreciate that superintendent then will all students be allowed to attend summer school who want to or only those who need to deal with their learning the loss will be given uh for learning laws but we are going to try to accommodate as many students as possible because there's also just the the time of re-engagement for students that in the sel just the social support that network that's so important so you know our goal is uh you know we're looking to put more money into summer school this year than
080last year about three million dollars more there's flexibility if there's a demand for more seats the big issue is going to be capacity of hiring enough staff our teachers are also and staff are looking for a break this summer it's been a really hard year as you know so we are going to be monitoring uh staffing uh great thing about the complex area superintendents is i have three of them here that i've talked to and i've been in their schools um they are working across schools if necessary um again to make sure that we can accommodate as many students as possible thank you superintendent my last question is um are there plans to create opportunities for seniors to repeat their senior year who want to beef up their academics to get into certain colleges or
081beef up their athletics or their music talents musical talents or arts or or are they not going to be allowed and just graduate with the grades that they have that may not be high enough to get accepted into the premier colleges i'm going to have deputy universami jump on and answer this question in part i will mention that and reiterate that the colleges and many of the posts high school opportunities whether that's military or workforce we're working with a lot of partners so that so that it's not just automatically looking at whether additional time in high school is the approach as opposed to transitioning well and providing that additional support through our partner organizations our colleges have been great because that's the demand nationally um phyllis senator um so for for seniors who um i
082think there's two types of seniors that we might be talking about one that has aspirations and may need extra support in completing their graduation credits and so for that in that instance we have created credit recovery and extra supports that allow them to uh to do dual credit early college um experiences that will help to build their identity as uh as as a college uh someone who belongs in college the second are people are maybe students who have completed their graduation requirements and may be looking for a higher level of college experience and i think that's the same for any senior that may not have gotten into their stretch college and um it is looking at a college that is uh that has accepted them but they may have a a stretch goal of going
083to a another type of college um in those instances what we do we will try to do is work with them and that's why the counseling and support services are set up during the summer and possibly throughout the year because i think that um in those cases um just like my daughter she might not have gotten me to the college that she wanted to get into but in her freshman year of college she worked towards what would it take to be accepted by the college of her choice and so there are ways in which kids can personalize on their experiences in their first year of college in order to show that they are a viable candidate for the college of their choice thank you for that phyllis um i appreciate something if you don't mind
084sure bob one of the things that that you know we've realized in talking to our high schools is that you know the colleges and universities are very understanding of where the current seniors are at due to the pandemic and what we've found is they've been in very good contact with the schools and with the students [Music] and i i can say that professionally and personally as my daughter is graduating this year and going away to college she applied to to you know state schools movie schools and private schools and they've been very accommodating knowing that she's at a public school in a pandemic i will also say that i'm aware of other students you know you know it was mentioned about playing sports and you know a kid playing playing football at a public school
085that's a pretty rural school but you know did pretty good academically and was pretty good in sports we celebrated him signing to play for west point you know so it is good to know that the colleges and universities are very understanding of the situation that the kids in 2021 are in so we're happy for those kids thank you for that bob superintendent and all of you thank you so much for being on and i'm sorry we didn't have more time to devote you know we are on a very strict timeline before we could go on forever but they're going to cut us off at 4 30 and i still have to get to the board of education but thank you very much for joining us aloha okay moving on to the last item on our
086agenda the board of education is catherine payne with us i'm here senator and kelly namau is also present keely i also have bruce and lynn fallon i don't know if they're on they're not in the zoo okay thank you um do you have something prepared catherine would you like to well you gave me three questions do you want me to answer those questions please okay the first question that you asked was when does the board plan on taking up the doe's plan on learning loss and we actually began that discussion earlier but in april at our april meeting there is a meeting of the finance and infrastructure committee that will address the part of the summer plan that was deferred from the essr to monies we asked the department to go back and take a
087look at those funds and they'll be presenting them and that's just on the funding part but also in the general board meeting on that day we will be asking for an update perhaps it will be similar to what you have heard today on the plans for what the department is doing to address learning loss with the federal monies that have been added to the resources that we have in the sr3 so that will be a discussion and an update on april 15th and in may the finance and infrastructure committee will also take up the funding for that because the process is that the board needs to approve the department's funding and as you know we did not approve all of it last time and we that was deferred until this meeting coming up on april
08815th so do you want to take each one and ask questions or did you want me to go ahead and finish yeah okay so we the second question you asked me was what priorities has the board issued to the department um regarding the plan for learning loss and we actually had two resolutions that were given to the department one has expired because that was just specifically for last summer but the second resolution is ongoing and the primary part of that resolution is what is reflected in the plan that you just heard about is that the most vulnerable students will be prioritized but we certainly are in support of all students whatever their needs are that have accumulated during this time whatever their needs are will be addressed but the priority being for students who have
089the highest loss of learning the third question you asked was does the current meeting schedule meet the doe timeline and we do have one general board meeting scheduled each month which was a change this year but what we have discovered is that as things have come up we have scheduled several special meetings where we have addressed specific topics that were needed and sometimes two or three a month of these special meetings just focusing on a specific topic so the the board is is willing and ready to schedule whatever additional meetings are needed to make sure that we are addressing what needs to be done to make sure our summer and our fall openings are done smoothly and that the needs of the students are fully fully being met thank you did keely want to jump
090in and say anything keely are you there aloha oh yes i can see you too aloha i just wanted to say um just to add that i'm on in maui county anyways i'm just taking a personal interest in working with some of the schools on some of the their summer programming so just to say that i believe all hands are on deck this year to support the students with everything as best we can the department everybody's everybody is ready and willing to make whatever is needed to support the students and i'm certainly doing that right now here on in maui working with principals and other educators trying to help students and motivate them and engage them hopefully this summer thank you so i where i read and i'm not sure if it was the does
091uh notes or report that we have probably 16 of our seniors that may not make their requirements for graduation so it seems in the the report that superintendent just gave us that they are looking to do remedial work for those that have learning laws and they are going to look at doing those seniors or those that need their graduation credits too and so i guess my question is um do we know if um that 16 are actually wanting to come back to school or have you know i know that they also have some programs to work with the students but you know do they want to come back and get their degree and if they do are we is the doe or i don't know if this is a board decision able to give them
092a late graduate graduation certificate i'm not this is katherine and i'm not sure if um what the current practices are i know that for a number of high schools in the past we would graduate students in the summer because they completed their work at that point some students chose to come back in the following year because they wanted to have that experience of participating in a regular graduation but then we would give them a letter so that they could go on to community college or you know continue their their plan but they still wanted to participate with graduates so i believe the high schools are are thinking about this i don't have any data maybe i don't know if phyllis or the superintendent would have that but i am confident that every high school is
093gathering that information and reaching out as strongly as they possibly can to every student who is needing that kind of support and i doubt that there are too many that don't want to graduate that's that's kind of a thing where every kid wants to wants to walk and participate in graduation yeah so i guess and maybe phyllis this would be a question for you um i've just got word that we're being given are given a reprieve of 10 minutes so let's see if we can finish this in 10 minutes um so speaking of that 16 that right now does not have the requirements to graduate have the department reached out to them to know that there is help out there and that they can come back and take remedial courses during the summer and if
094they've reached out to them how many um are wanting to do that so i you know i i wouldn't have that number right now um the cases are still on the line and i do know that um it is a normal practice even pre-covet um that the counselors and the principals are always are really making a committed attempt to to reach out to every senior who may be off track at this point to take a look at on a case-by-case basis what is it that that that particular learner needs um catherine as a former principal knows that activity quite well you're tracking every single student and looking at credit recovery a concerted attempt in the class what is it going to take to get the passing grade and so forth and i just see bob
095jumping on the line so i'm going to turn it over to bob but i do know that we have ways of um of doing that under covet it's even clearer that we have to do that more carefully but i think having the the casualties explain what their schools are doing right now in terms of seniors would be very helpful thank you bob can you give us some input sure i met with all three of the high school principals and asked that specific question pertaining to their graduates and and what you know the lds data system shows and what they currently have occurring on their campus is slightly different because lds only refreshes you know for semester and yearly marks and so even like milani high school has the refresh class for those that needed the
096extra semester all three schools do have programming that students can take whether before school or after school down in high court because we're fortunate we have that program for taking those extra credits that are needed to ensure that they have the requirements for graduation and so all three high schools you know reported that the numbers that currently are reported in lds are are quite a bit higher than what is actually occurring they have prioritized their credit recovery for summer programming for those particular students they're trying their best to make it as equitable as possible whether it's in person and or online for those that needed it online and they really are poised to do what is best for students and they're working hard and they have specific counselors that are focusing on those kids and
097i'm sure that's pretty common throughout the high schools in the state so diesel what about um so these students that we're talking about that 16 that that i'm hearing about um are they the only ones who are allowed to come back and and repeat grade 12 or can other seniors who have lower grades are graduating but not with the grades that they want to or whether it's for athletics or music or whatever and trying to get into a better college if they need a higher gpa would they be allowed to retake their senior year or only the students who are failing so two things one is that um students who are um so number one the numbers are not as bad as uh lds shows at waianae we have approximate have anywhere between eight and
098ten students we're still tracking who are still on the cusp of not making it nanakuli has about five so we've whittled that really down um and we're not as worried as we were earlier in the year to answer your second question any student who is age 19 and not graduated as of the first day of school can remain in school for the remainder of the year even if they turn 20 the the day after so somebody would have to answer a legal question around when eagerly they can attend school if they've officially graduated and the second question would be it's a oia decision around the age that a student must be to participate and so i'm sorry i don't know the exact way a rule that would apply but we've had past students who have
099pretty severe emotional issues and we've held back ptp credits so that the student could repeat a year with us for emotional reasons but um so there are ways around it i just don't know if they can officially graduate and then return okay so how can we find that out for sure i mean is that this a decision the board makes or the department can make i would ask the ag oh okay okay sorry i have no problem with letting them uh back in for on an individual plan for an individual purpose i'm just i need assurance that it's legal because i don't know exactly what how the law would be interpreted so i know that if they're 19 on the first day of school and they have not graduated they can attend which is why
100i said we withheld like the ptp credit um so that a student could attend a second year okay yeah i'm i'm asking that question but i don't seem to be able to i see superintendent back on superintendent do you know what the answer is yeah we have a number of policies that come into play here so i think we're being careful about the nuances around this once you've graduated for liability reasons i don't think there's any high school destination that would let a student come back on to take courses once you're graduated you don't mix a graduate with young kids coming back in you know you know also you're not covered as a state we're also unique and that as a public education system we're a state agency and so we fall under state liability
101which is different from lea so we are very very unique which is why the tendency of saying we've got to run some of these unique situations by the ag it really depends our castles do a great job of running all of their kids by the various policies we have in place that are well documented anything outside of that we would run it by the ages to see if it's allowable and if it's allowable whether uh you know if it falls outside of liability coverage then it would not be allowable if it falls within liability and and within our scope of being a k-12 system otherwise we would be moving um to adulthood or to early college partnership with a local university rather than than doing that on a high school campus so so we do
102have very clear policy uh madam chair i don't want it to seem as if um this is a gray area because it's not it's mostly very black and white uh if there are specific nuances that we need to look at this year we will just like last year we did it but it's one very quick example last year our summer program for kids that were behind who were graduating was very very successful and part of it was that the high schools took part of quarter four and transitioned right into summer very seamlessly they did not wait to end the quarter four to then start some separate summer credit recovery they just made it all contiguous and so we'll be doing the same thing now because that was highly successful again if there are more specific
103questions you know we can look at answers to those specific questions so it's uh again there are so many different conditions thank you i think that you provided the answer basically if they don't have the credits to graduate they could repeat as long as they're not 20 before start of school but if they have the credits to graduate then you graduate then and or they can go transition to adult ed and and be connected with a college especially a community college they don't have to be a graduate uh to start community college courses and we will try to keep them going so they can be with their age peers thank you thank you very much thank you for uh staying on past 4 30 with me mahalo this hearing's adjourned you