Report Title:

Resources for Early Access Learning (R.E.A.L.); Appropriation

Description:

Appropriates funds to expand the Families for R.E.A.L. program.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1917

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

making an appropriation for families for resources for early access to learning.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that parents are the young child's first and most significant teachers. Brain research reveals that the development of neural patterns that promote or inhibit learning throughout life are dependent on the person's environment and experiences in the early years, birth through eight. Therefore, one of the best approaches to a child's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development is to empower parents in their role of providing a caring and intellectually stimulating environment in the earliest years. Families for R.E.A.L. (Resources for Early Access to Learning), based on Minnesota's statewide Early Childhood/Family Education Model, has done just that.

Families for R.E.A.L. is a public school early childhood/family education program for parents of children, ages birth to five, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The program operates in trimesters, each consisting of nine weeks. Parents and children attend classes once a week for nine weeks on the weekday designated for their children's age group. Parents learn developmentally appropriate parenting/teaching skills regarding the very young. They network with each other and learn how to access community resources even after they leave the program. Their children learn social, physical, early literacy, and numeric skills and, most importantly, gain a stronger and more confident teacher in their home.

Currently, there are three program sites: Pearl City Highlands Elementary School, Kapunahala Elementary School in the Windward District, and Wailuku Union Church in the Maui District. Each Families for R.E.A.L. site serves three hundred fifty to five hundred families or one thousand individuals (parent and child) per year. Kindergarten teachers consistently report that children who attend Families for R.E.A.L. come to school ready to learn. Not surprisingly, each site has a waitlist of five hundred families or one thousand parents and children. The legislature finds that the Families for R.E.A.L. program prepares both parents and children for a smooth transition into kindergarten and that parents remain actively involved in their children's elementary schools.

The legislature also finds that the family support section of the department of education and the existing Families for R.E.A.L. site teams produced content and performance standards for parent participants of the program and shared their experiences with others in the early childhood/family field. In addition, thousands of parents have been sent to Families for R.E.A.L. by parent alumnae, educators, courts, and other health, social, and educational agencies. Therefore, the purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation to establish the program in the Honolulu, Central, Kauai, and Hawaii districts so that parents in each school district have a full-fledged anchor site.

The legislature also finds that one center in each district is not enough in heavily populated districts or in districts where distance isolates families from easily accessing early childhood/family services. It is therefore the intent of the legislature to also fund ten satellite sites to serve populations where the need and demand exists.

Professional development services to train staff and to establish new district and satellite sites will be provided by the family support section of the department of education and the existing staff of the three Families for R.E.A.L. sites. Other resource persons from the early childhood field and community will also be tapped.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $880,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2004-2005, to fund and expand the Families for R.E.A.L. program, and to be expended as follows:

(1) $380,000 to fund four additional Families for R.E.A.L. sites at the cost of $95,000 per site.

(2) $500,000 to fund ten part-time satellite sites at the cost of $50,000 each.

SECTION 3. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of education for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2004.

INTRODUCED BY:

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