STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2316

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2256

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2020

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2256 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TEACHER RECRUITMENT,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to authorize the Department of Education to provide incentives to enhance the recruitment and retention of public school teachers.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education, Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, State Public Charter School Commission, a member of the Maui County Council, Special Education Advisory Council, Democratic Party of Hawaii Education Caucus, and Kamehameha Schools.

 

     Your Committee finds that our State continues to face a chronic teacher shortage. Hawaii teacher pay ranks last in the nation when adjusted for the cost of living.  In the 2019-2020 school year, the Department of Education experienced a qualified teacher shortage of nine hundred seventy-three positions.  The Department of Education continues to lose approximately fifty percent of new hires after five years, with the number of teachers exiting the profession increasing by more than eighty percent since 2010.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure to include public charter school teachers.

 

     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. 2256, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2256, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

 

 

________________________________

MICHELLE N. KIDANI, Chair