001good afternoon thank you for joining us for a joint meeting of the committee on education and committee on housing wednesday march 17th 3 o'clock conference room 229 these are um one item on the agenda house bill 525 hd2 relating to teacher housing clarifies that doe may construct housing for teachers on a public school campus requires that housing units constructed or acquired on a school campus after 6 30 2021 be rented and at an affordable cost to new teachers or teachers teaching in a rural or heart to staff location with priority given to teacher teachers employed full-time at the school where the housing unit is located um with me are housing i mean sorry education committee members vice chair senator donna ricardo kim senator kanuha and senator chang our housing chair on virtual i'm not sure
002if other members are with him anyway to testify actually we have several people that gave written testimony and no oral testimony is that correct all it says okay to testify roy ikeda for the department of education i don't see what i see rendering randy are you here to testify of that yes yes chair uh cherokee dani chair vice chair kim chang and vice chair con thank you very much for your time for the sake of brevity i will be brief we have submitted testimony and we support the intent of the bill i'm here to answer questions if you have any thank you very much for your time aloha aloha thank you randy members questions if not next testifier corey rosani president hawaii teacher state teachers association aloha laverne moore speaking on behalf of corey rosenberg
003president of the hawaii state teachers association we stand on our written testimony in support of house bill 525 with comments house bill 525 allows a public school teacher with less than six years to occupy which is good for incoming teachers where will the teacher go like on lanai after five years of teaching or in a higher to staff area that may not be affordable this is when we lose a number of our highly qualified teachers back to the mainland because they just cannot afford to live here i like senate bill 804 teacher rental housing which makes living in hawaii affordable for a long term and helps with recruitment and retention house bill 525 teacher housing is a start senate bill 804 teacher rental housing is sustainability for our teaching profession thank you very much thank
004you laverne members questions if not let's see chair chang did you have any questions or comments for the testifiers i did not okay recess okay returning to our joint meeting on committee on education and committee on housing for house bill 525 relating to teacher housing the recommendation of the chair will be to pass house bill 525 hd2 with amendments and the amendments are directing the doe to partner with hawaii public housing authority hawaii housing finance and development corporation and the school facilities agency in the construction of teacher housing on school campuses number two clarifying that units should be rented at comparable affordable rates as existing teacher housing and number three that they should own no other real estate with no further questions and comments recommendation of the chair is to pass house bill 525 hd2
005with amendments chair votes eye hospital 525 hd2 with amendments chair vote side vice chair vote side senator de la cruz excused senator kanu aye and senator favela excuse um with three members president all voting in the affirmative your recommendation is adopted thank you sheriff housing thank you chair and for the committee on housing the same recommendation to pass north amendments share boats eye for the committee on housing hb525 chairs recommendations passed with amendments charitables i vice chair vote side senator mauriwaki aye senator rhodes and senator favela is excused here you have four eyes recommendations adopted thank you this meeting is adjourned good afternoon thank you for joining us for the joint hearing committees on education and committee on government operations wednesday march 17th 3 10 p.m in conference room 229 we are here to hear
006house bill 515 hd1 relating to the department of education requires the auditor to audit the department of education school food services branch to determine how much local produce is being purchased and served to students to testify we have randy tanaka from the department of education randy hello chair kidani vice chair kim chairmaulki and vice chair de la cruz thank you very much for your time we stand by our testimony presented i appreciate your time here to answer any questions if you have any thank you very much aloha thank you members are there any questions of randy tanaka from the department of education if not we are moving on to micah municata testifying for lupono initiative my cup please afternoon chair kidani chairmauriewaki michael monica here on behalf of the hulu pony initiative we stand on
007our testimony in support of this measure thank you thank you members are there any questions for micah if not our next testifier is brian mitu miyamoto testifying for the hawaii farm bureau brian thank you good afternoon cherokee bonnie chair war walking flights chairs kevin de la cruz brought me a moment here on behalf of the hawaii park world hawaii farm bill will stand on it's freaking custom report just wanted to highlight that the data will be very helpful creating the baseline and we believe that that will help facilitate more local pros and products into our farm school and partnership program but specifically for the performance group so thank you for hearing this measure thank you brian appreciate the testimony members any questions of brian um chair mauriwaki do you have any questions or your members
008okay i'm going to go into recess thank you reconvening the joint hearing on community and education and committee on government operations on house bill 515 hd1 relating to department of education recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments um technical amendments as well as to effect the date members questions comments if not chair votes eye chair votes eye on house bill 515 house draft one uh vice chair vote side senator de la cruz excuse senator canooha senator favela mama chair four members president of voting affirmative recommendations adopted thank you chair mauriwaki before the committee on government operations uh same same recommendation their votes i uh senator gabbard hi senator thank you this this concludes the hearing um hello everyone this is the committee on labor and cultural affairs jointly with the committee on education
009we have a hearing on one bill today um today is wednesday march 17 2021. we are in conference room 229 and is roughly 3 20. we have one bill like i said the house bill house draft two this is relating to the uniform employee and student online privacy protection act prior to starting i need some housekeeping announcements this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you will find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislature's website in the unlikely event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties i believe the labor committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on friday at 3 10 p.m in this room can you meet
010friday or wherever you're gonna what time do you wanna reconvene in case we get abruptly three o'clock yeah three o'clock friday okay and the education committee will uh meet at 3 p.m on friday also let's see if you are online and would like to submit testimony you may do so on the legislative website until midnight today again we'll go to house bill 125 house draft two we have some testifiers department of education we will stand on our written testimony in support of this bill we are available for questions of course thank you for the opportunity thank you um we have testimony from the commission to promote uniform legislation uh commissioner oshiro good afternoon chairs uh senators blake usher on behalf of the commission to promote uniform legislation we stand on our written testimony and i
011am available for any questions thank you we also have written testimony from the hawaii civil rights commission which is supportive of the bill do you have any questions from members for the two testifiers no okay [Music] with no questions that i guess we will recess the public hearing and go into decision making welcome back this is the decision-making session for the joint committee communities on labor cultural arts and the committee on education we had one bill house bill 125 house draft 2 this is relating to the uniform employee and student online privacy protection act both chairs have conferred and we will recommend that we pass this bill with amendments will amend reference to the age of majority on page 6 line 9 to under the age of 18 and make other technical and non-substantive amendments
012is there any discussion from members if not um for the vote for labor so later committee members were voting on the chair's recommendation to pass hp one two five with an endless chair tony gucci all right bye she goes i senator chang hi senator kyo colorway hi senator favela the recommendation is adopted thank you thank you and members for the committee on education the chair recommends the same with to pass house bill 125 hd2 with amendments chair votes eye chair vote zion hospital one two five house draft two uh with amendments chair boat side vice chair woodside senator de la cruz senator kanoha senator favela all five members president senator fabella can i hear him thank you all five members present voting affirmative recommendations adopted thank you for recess good afternoon welcome to our committee
013on education this is wednesday march 17th 3 20 p.m agenda here in room 229. first on the agenda is house bill 1360hd1 relating to early learning establishes an early childhood education stipend program to be administered by the executive office of early learning to address the shortage of qualified early childhood educators in hawaii requires stipend fund repayments where the early childhood educators type in program to be deposited into the early learning special fund to testify we testify robert peters chair early learning board good afternoon chair kadani and vice chair kim and members of the committee the early learning board strongly supports hp 1360 hd1 as a vehicle for incentivizing workforce capacity building which will be so critical for our expansion of early learning as outlined in act 46 i'm available for questions if any are asked
014thank you for this opportunity thank you members any questions of mr peters if not thank you bob next lauren moriguchi director executive office on early learning lauren please good afternoon chair vice chair and members of the committee uel is in strong support of house bill 1360 hd1 we thank the legislature for the passage of act 46 last session which increases access to early care and education and for your recognition of the need for qualified early childhood educators here in hawaii in 2020 there were 3 410 early childhood care and educational workers by recurring projections we'll need to double our workforce over the next 12 years in order to reach our goal of expanding access to all three and four-year-olds the stipend program will help to increase the workforce by providing funds to cover tuition and
015fees while reducing financial barriers for those who are amongst the lowest paid workers i'd also like to emphasize that this bill leverages private funding and doesn't require appropriations as we recognize the dire economic situation the state is currently facing thank you for this opportunity to testify in this bill and i'm happy to address any questions you may have thank you lauren members any questions for lauren moriguchi if not thank you lauren next to testify kathy betts director for the department of human services kathy please is kathy there sorry student accident chairman on behalf of director kathy best we stand on our written testimony in supporting the intent of this measure and providing additional comments i'll be available for questions as well thank you for this opportunity thank you dana members are there any questions for
016our department of human services if not thank you dana also to testify we have an individual kate stanley a name from the past you're you're on mute i can't hear you kate you're muted i think her play is not working she's not muted okay your audio may not be working apparently you're not muted okay do we have do we have her written statement yeah she has written testimony okay we have your written testimony apparently we can't hear you i'm sorry but thank you very much for testifying and sorry we can't ask you questions because all of our questions we saved for you [Laughter] thank you kate okay members go ahead kate i'm having trouble with my computer can you hear me now yes we can hear you go ahead okay i don't have anything to
017add to my testimony but encourage you to move this bill forward thank you so much for uh participating and it's so nice to see you kate members any questions are kate if not thank you kate that is all of our testifiers we do have several more written testimony members and with that we will move on to item number two house bill 608 hd2 relating to the board of education requires the board of education to hold no less than six community forums annually with at least one forum in each county to testify sorry to testify randy tanaka department of education no sorry he's there i'm sorry okay i'm sorry we have no testifiers for house bill 608 so let us move on item number three this is senate concurrent resolution 38 and senate resolution 27 urging
018the hawaii state department of education school food services branch to adopt an addendum to its agreement for the aina pono hawaii state farm to school program requiring the procurement of goods and or services from food hubs to testify randy tanaka department of education randy please hello sir donnie turkey advisor kim thank you for your time today we stand by our testimony we have made a comment or two about further definition of a food hub uh i had some discussions with uh mr miyamoto and uh we're to do our best effort to get more of our local farmers to our student cafeterias thank you hello members questions of randy tanaka if not next to testify brian miyamoto hawaii farm bureau afternoon cherokee dawning vice chair can members of the committee brian miyamoto uh here on beyond
019the hawaii farm bureau uh chair our testimonies offers comments however we do support the intent of this resolution we absolutely support um more local produce and proteins in school lunches we are very supportive of food house we think that they are going to fit important role not only with our einer pono program and our farm to state program but just the growth of agriculture as we all know hawaii has many majority of our farmers are small farmers however uh we have some concerns with uh language in the resolution that says that that requires purchasing and the interpretation may be that a doe can only purchase from food hubs and not every farmer participates in a food hub or in events such as a heavy rains now maybe a food hub may not be able to
020provide the products that the ue needs so we we do suggest that instead of requiring uh what we could encourage we absolutely want food hubs to be part of farm to school and ida pono but by requiring it we may have some unintended consequences thank you for this opportunity to provide customers thank you for that input brian appreciate it members any questions of mr miyamoto if not next to testify dexter kishida individual good afternoon chair um dexter kishida also with the city and county of honolulu food security and sustainability program manager um and uh standing in on behalf of matt bonser our ccsr director but um standing on our testimony would like to add as an extra note after reading the reso again there is some wording regarding an mou to the ainopono program that
021that section should probably be removed um as the mou was with then lieutenant governor shanzitsui um and just for the pilot program um what we did suggest in our city and county and my personal testimony was to maybe do a working group um around food hubs to really define to help articulate better with the dod and with the state institutions or and the food what is the best path forward thank you dexter members questions next to testify hunter here villain hunter are you there madam chair that he's not present thank you and that is the end of the oral testimony and we have a few other testimonies that were sent in moving on next item on the agenda scr 63 sr 45 requesting the department of education to convene a working group to create a
022model statewide school policy on student suicide prevention intervention and postvention in grades k through 12. to testify heidi armstrong for the department of education heidi please good afternoon chair kidani and vice chair kim i'm heidi armstrong department of education testifying on behalf of superintendent kishimoto the department stands on its written testimony offering comments and within our testimony we've listed the existing policies that promote a positive school climate where students feel safe supported and have the sense of belonging and recognizing that each student has their own unique and personal circumstances which influence how they're impacted by risk factors the existing policies hold the department accountable to ensure that all students have access to a continuum of prevention intervention and postvention strategies to address the range of risk and protective factors for suicidal behavior and supportive of
023the department's work and commitment to promote positive mental health provide suicide awareness and prevention training aimed to ensure that students safety and to create caring environments the department respectfully suggests that this resolution is not necessary at this time thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you heidi members are there questions of heidi armstrong um heidi i do have a couple questions um as you know we've been uh you've been corresponding with me on this on this issue so um i i wanted to ask in your testimony you list multiple board policies and administrative rules that you believe makes this resolution unnecessary but in the last response you did to my office on suicide prevention training you noted that the schools have multiple options for suicide prevention curriculum but are any of these curriculums specifically
024tailored to groups mentioned in this resolution like the lbtg lgbtq plus youth with disabilities or chronic mental health conditions substance abuse homelessness foster care oh they're not tailored to a specific subgroup but they all do address the common signs and symptoms of mental mental illness within the age groups that we um serve they address the common signs and symptoms of substance abuse how to act with the child or adolescent in crisis how to connect people in need with help based on the symptoms that they're providing the trainings also in general address the suicidal risk factors that we know could be environmental risk factors health risk factors historical risk factors that could include include family history child abuse neglect or trauma and then they also address the warning signs that serve as red flags being the
025the talk or the verbal cues that a child is giving for example if they talk about i'm feeling hopeless no reason to live or there's behavioral warning signs there's mood warning signs and so the trainings that came out of that 270 provide that overview and the resources for the school personnel to either utilize based on the situation or to turn to when more assistance is necessary heidi um your your um testimony though when you say that you know this resolution may not um be necessary you know this one specifically talks about you know uh looking at these different groups and if you're not specific to these groups and are you you know doing reports that account take in account these numbers and you know what the issues are because i don't know how we're able
026to address it if we're not looking at it that way for instance um you also note you noted in a response that you were going to send out a reminder this month and is this you know for them to do the training and i think when i looked at it about half or so of the schools had not done the training as of yet so you're sending out a reminder to do this is it only because i asked or does somebody actually check on these no we do have a person from our office who checks throughout the year and every complex area or district has a lead person leading the effort for the schools in that particular complex area so the reminder was just one as we track and keep track of who has completed
027the trainings and who hasn't i can't predict what would have happened i do know and it's not an excuse it's a very unusual year that we've had and so it doesn't preclude us or excuse us for not completing all of the trainings and tasks we've been assigned it's just been a very unusual year but our goal and our aim and our directive is that for school year 2021 every single one of our schools has completed this training to be in compliance with act 270. thank you for that heidi um i will say i agree with you that this has been a very unusual year but i think more so this training you know was necessary not just this year but also last year with them you know with the seniors that didn't have their proms
028didn't have their graduations and uh you know something that i think some of these students you know that's all they look forward to you know that's the big event and you know graduations you know ceremonies didn't happen so that's why i'm very disappointed that you know this was let go this long um so do when in the year do you guys take a look and see whether or not the schools have have performed this um survey or not or her the training our office checks continually and we follow up and we have followed up throughout the year as the data comes in on who has and who hasn't completed the training so we are aware of who has completed it today and who hasn't completed it today and the the directive which everybody has received
029and understands is that this training will be and must be completed um prior to the end of the school year thank you and i look forward for a report at the end of the school year as to whether or not that was uh done absolutely members questions thank you very much heidi appreciate it thank you we have another testifier kagan miller testifying for the trevor project fagin good afternoon chair cadani and members of the committee my name is keegan miller i'm senior advocacy associate for the trevor project previously i served as a special education teacher and i currently lead our efforts on school suicide prevention i appreciate the opportunity to express the trevor project's strong support of h.r 45 requesting a model statewide school policy on suicide prevention the trevor project is the world's largest
030suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lgbtq young people we work every day to save lives by providing free and confidential suicide prevention through 24 7 phone lifeline chat and text our 2020 national survey on lgbtq youth mental health showed that 40 of lgbtq youth have seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months and more than half of transgender and non-binary youth had seriously considered it the coven 19 pandemic has exacerbated the need for mental health and suicide prevention especially as social isolation has increased due to physical distancing and other preventative measures recent polling by the trevor project also shows that 35 percent of lgbtq youth report feeling more lonely during the coven pandemic compared to only 22 percent of their cisgender straight peers a higher baseline of vulnerability at when thank you keegan
031um members this is the last of the oral testimony we had we do have some written testimony are there any questions of um testifier keegan miller uh keegan i actually i actually have a question hearing the last testimony from assistant superintendent heidi armstrong and um there is already a program within the department of education apparently not so much geared to the lbgtq group but is there any programs that you guys have that may be useful or you may you can make some recommendations for the department to look at that that you guys may have used or is recommended by the different medical authorities absolutely so it's really about the schools having policy to include these high-risk groups um we know that they're often left out of of consideration the trevor project the american foundation for
032suicide prevention the national school psychologist and the american school counselors association actually have a model school policy that is easily accessible and can be used as a resource or as a reference point for for this type of policy work thank you so much for that appreciate it okay members we'll move on to no further questions to our next item scr 81 and sr 61 urging the department of education to include the teaching of financial literacy and the existing existing personal transition plan course requirement for each student to testify terry ushijima for department of education good night good afternoon cherokee diamond vice chairman of kim and members of the committee comparing to my whom assistant superintendent of the department of education testify on behalf of dr christina hishimoto we stand on our written testimony and offer
033comment on scr 81 the department would like to highlight that there are varying personnel transition plans or ptp models across high schools and each high school has a flexibility to design its ptp curriculum within the department's guidelines and other school improved requirements further there are various options to deliver financial literacy that schools can select from career and technical education business courses economics guide advanced guidance or the new financial literacy course and others thank you for the opportunity to testify and i'm available for questions thank you terry members are there any questions for terry yoshida yeah senator kim has a question um so terry is this financial literacy part of the core um core courses or is it all elective and the financial literacy is an elective course so is there any any intent to include
034it as part of a core core curriculum not at this time however the schools have been figuring out different ways to infuse financial literacy into their school offerings so students have opportunities for financial literacy we realize that this is a very important skill for our youth and so we also have partners with some credit unions and different programs at different high schools and so the schools have been addressing it in ways that are in are matching their community and student needs i just can't understand why it is not part of a core because in order to be successful in life you have to have financial literacy i mean that it has to be a basic and if our students are not getting that especially we have um other students on the financial lower financial end
035that i think probably is that they don't have this kind of education and they're probably not want to select it as an elective so i'm not sure why we need to include these kinds of results it should be part of your core curriculum i mean what is considered a well-rounded education if it doesn't include financial literacy i yes i i agree financial literacy is very important for students and it is important that they have the opportunity to learn those skills while they're in high school i think they should be required to learn it or just have the opportunity do you folks also include any kind of education on the stock market and the economy that kind of financial literacy as well in your courses i i have our um specialist we have an economics course
036um and so i think that's where that would fall under so um i don't know if um we can elaborate further on that oh no thank you very much thank you thank you members for their questions terry i think i'd like to point out that um maybe a couple weeks ago we did um something about the edu prize the commercialism bill and i think that would be a great opportunity to look at that program also to be able to teach some kind of financial literacy because this this is based on helping the students learn you know about business to learn to commercialize their uh their items whether they they're making t-shirts or hats or whatever at the school level or doing other things and disappointing that to hear that since october or whatever nothing has
037been done on this and therefore the bill to move this along but this might be one of the opportunities and hopefully the department will get serious about making more opportunities to give our students financial literacy thank you terry thank you members if there's no further questions we'll move on to our final item scr 83 sr 63 urging the department of education to use coronavirus aid relief and economic security act and coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act monies to retain teachers and prevent hurdles to testify brian hallett department of education brian please good afternoon sir kadani vice chair kim committee members of the department uh stands on its written testimony with comments on this scr it stands by if there's any questions thank you thank you brian members are there any questions for brian hallett
038if not that um concludes the testimony we do have a written testimony from corey rosenly on this item so let's go into recess reconvening our committee on education hearing 320 hearing for house bill 1360 hd1 the recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments there are technical and non-substantive amendments no questions chair votes eye care votes on house bill 1360 house draft one well just to see who's here is the vice chair vote side senator de la cruz excuse me senator favela four members president vote informative recommendations adopted thank you for bill 608 hd 2 recommendation is to defer decision making until next monday march 22nd at 305 pm in this room 229 for scr 38 and sr 27 recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments to clarify that doe is urged
039to include food hubs as part of the overall procurement strategy for goods and services related to the farm to school program but not exclusively purchase from food hubs also to remove language related to reference of mou with lieutenant governor's office and technical and non-substantive amendments members questions if not chair votes eye charvatza and scr 38 and sr 27 of the four members president is anyone who have reservations any members voting in the negative hearing out your recommendations adopted thank you for scr 63 and sr 45 recommendation of the chair is to pass as is chair bozai scr 63 and sr45 okay the recommendation is to pass as is as cr 63 sr45 of the four members president any members voting with reservations any members voting in opposition hearing none for members voting all your recommendations
040adopted thank you for scr 81 and sr 61 recommendation of the chair will be to pass with amendments and this would be to add another be it resolved to for the department of education to have consistency in a financial literacy curriculum for the students um there's no technical okay so recommendation is to pass with that amendment chair votes eye turbo tsai and scr 81 and sr 61 of the four members president any members voting with reservations any members voting in opposition hearing none for eyes recommendations adopted thank you and the last one on the agenda today scr 83 and sr 63 recommendation of the chair is to pass as is question chair volkswagen sure votes on scr 83 and sr 63 the four members president any members voting in reservations any members opposition hearing none
041four members i voting i recommendations adopted thank you and that concludes our hearing you