Senate Standing Committee on Education

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome. This joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Education and Committee on Health and Human Services will come to order. Today's Wednesday, February 11th, and we're meeting in this room, Conference Room 225. And this hearing is being streamed live on YouTube.

If this hearing is abruptly ends due to technical difficulties, the Committee will reconvene on Friday, February 13th at 1pm in Conference Room 229, which a notice will be posted on the legislature's website. And due to the number of measures before the Committee and the volume of testimonies, testimony will be limited to one minute for testifier.

And in light of the the rain day we had on Monday, a lot of our hearings are being backed up because everything had to be rescheduled. So I hope you will all patient. If technical difficulties do arise during zoom testimony, a Committee may need to proceed to the next testifier. But we do have your written testimony.

The purpose of today's hearing is to receive testimony on measures relating to student health and safety in schools, academic and workforce programs, and also with the University of Hawaii. So we will start with our first item on the agenda. Welcome our chair from the Big Island.