STAND. COM. REP. NO. 791

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: S.B. No. 1637

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1637 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EDUCATION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to provide funding to hire an additional 163.5 FTE secondary school teachers for the Department of Education's comprehensive school alienation program.

Your Committee finds that the comprehensive school alienation program is a statewide secondary education prevention and early intervention program aimed at students identified as being at-risk of becoming alienated from school or dropping out of school before meeting the high school graduation requirements. To help keep these students in school and help them graduate, the program provides appropriate instructional and counseling support services to assist students in overcoming educational, social, emotional, and related difficulties that hinder their academic progress and personal development.

In order to ensure that students receive the instruction they need in a smaller learning environment that is conducive to learning, the program seeks to reduce the teacher to student ratio to one to twenty-five. This measure will help to facilitate the reduction in this ratio by hiring additional teachers for the program for each public secondary school.

Upon further review, your Committee amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1637, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1637, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair