STAND. COM. REP. 2294

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: S.B. No. 3205

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 3205 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CLASS SIZE REDUCTION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Education, subject to the availability of funds, to reduce the ratio of students to teachers in kindergarten to grade six to not more than twenty students to one teacher, over a period of seven years.

Your Committee received testimony in support of the measure from the Department of Education and Hawaii State Teachers Association. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to the measure from the Director of Finance.

Your Committee finds that the early years of grade school are the most crucial ones in terms of preparing the foundation for later academic, social, and behavioral development. Performance assessments recently mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind for grade three also make this a crucial period to support student learning and holistic development to the greatest extent possible.

Your Committee has amended the measure by:

(1) Limiting the reduction in class size from kindergarten to grade three;

(2) Raising the student-teacher ratio to twenty-five-to-one; and

(3) Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3205, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3205, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Education,

____________________________

NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair