Senate Standing Committee on Education

Good afternoon. We're convening the Joint Committees on Water, Land, Culture, and the Arts, and Education on our joint 1:00 PM agenda here in State Capitol Conference Room 229. We have one measure on the agenda. There is a lot of testimony on it, though, so we'll ask folks to make sure you have your written testimony submitted. And we'll be limiting testifiers to one minute to make sure that there's time to get through everybody.

I'll just note that there are a number of committee hearings, separate from this, going on throughout the afternoon that folks will have to run off to. So, that being said, up first is Senate Bill 2003, relating to natural resource management, which requires the Auditor's report pursuant to Section 4 of Act 255 to include recommendations whether Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight is fit to continue management and makes other amendments. Testifying first on SB 2003 is the Office of the Auditor. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me.

Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority. Good afternoon.

Thank you. Next on Zoom is Huli Pak.

Not present on Zoom, chair.

Thank you. Also on Zoom, Leymomi Khan.

Also not on Zoom.

Okay. That's everybody who signed up to testify in person. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on SB 2003? Please come forward.

Aloha. Angela Melody Young, CARES. I'm wishing to comment to provide an amendment. So, initially, what caused the conflict, I think, was the Hawaiians and their culture, and then they got, like, the actor, Jason Momoa, to go on the mountain and to do their parade. And so, it initially started with the Hawaiians and their culture and their worship, and then the interference of DOT and DHHL, which the Supreme Court ruled against DOT and DHHL.

So, what I'd recommend, I think, to kind of balance the ongoing conflicts is to perhaps request a work group to be recommended, without delegating too much authority to the Auditor. So, a work group with DOT, DHHL, DLNR, the University of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian practitioners, and OHA to facilitate the transitional period where the authority will assume control from the University of Hawaiʻi and the Department of Land and Natural Resources. So that, in this transition, the University and the other...

Can you just please summarize? Your time is up.

Responsible entities can jointly manage the aspects of the mountain. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else wishing to testify in SB 2003? Seeing none. Other questions?

The auditor is not here, so who would we ask the question of?

Is there anyone from the Auditor's Office? Okay. Mr. Chair, I'm just gonna paraphrase some of this, that's written in the—for the record. He says that they have strong reservations, and they're the ones who are asking to do the—to do this audit. "We have strong reservations about this bill as it relates to the Office of the Auditor."

Goes on. He says, "We note the bill—that the bill does not include any criteria or other information against we should assist the authority's performance to a base determination, and then we request that the bill be held or amended to remove the requirement that the audit include a recommendation about the authority's fitness to continue management of Mauna Kea." So, I mean, if, and it's the way we're asking to do the audit, I think they should be here so we can ask them questions.

But that's the gist of...

You can make a comment.

Sure. Okay. Thank you. Reason for this measure is that the Senate version of this Mauna Kea authority bill, the act deleted the Senate version of the bill at the last minute during conference. And so, at the request of Senator Dela Cruz, this revertment language should be back into the chapter, into the act.

And so, hence, the revertment pause mentions that if the Auditor during the period of transition is not to the act purpose, that it reverts back to the University of Hawaii and that, that's the reason for this measure. And that was the Senate's version of the act that was deleted during conference. And so, on behalf of, Senator Dela Cruz, the introduction of this bill, hence, is SB 2003.

Okay. Are there further questions?

Just discussion. I'm reading the bill. I don't know if I'm missing it, but I think on the first page on line eight, starting on line eight, "The report shall include our recommendations to whether the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority is fit to continue management." Doesn't say anything about the reversion. I know there are a lot of portions that are being taken out, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe manage—Mauna Kea can come up.

The version is in the last section.

Can you?

Very last page.

Okay. It starts from page three. Page three, all the way down.

The management authority of a Mauna Kea lands as defined in Section 304A-1901, Hawaii Revised Statute, shall revert to the University of Hawaii. Okay. That's—is that only after the, the audit takes place?

The auditor, as I understand the bill, the auditor is gonna determine whether or not we're fit or not. And if he determines that we're not fit, it automatically reverse.

Okay. But it, it determined upon it, which the auditor is saying, they don't know how they can make that determination.

Because we don't know—none of us know what fit means, right? That's the word language that is used.

Okay. Okay. That clarifies it for me. Thank you.

Further questions?

Yeah. Do you know when the auditor is going to make a report?

2031?

Yeah. He says he, he doesn't think he's able to, under the guidelines of the bill.

Act 255 already provides a performance and financial audit in 2031 already. This goes further and gives the auditor further authority to determine whether or not we're fit, whatever that means, and the power to kind of sunset the authority.

Well, I'm in agreement with Senator from the Big Island that it did include it in the original bill, that at the end of the period, should the transition does not take place and so forth, that the whole authority shall revert back to the university, but it never talked about fitness—basically, whether or not you're able to complete all the things that was, was required for by the bill. Right? Yeah.

So, I'm not sure why we, we need an auditor to tell us that if we think it should revert back.

I'm not sure. I voted against the bill, so I'm just doing my duty...

No, I'm just saying...

At the request of the, the Chair of Ways and Means. So, as far as I'm concerned, this measure is in effect because annually, MKOS is supposed to—did you folks, by the way, did you guys, report this?

Yes, we...

2025 to the legislature? When did we get it?

The twenty days before the session.

Okay, alright. So, annually, they need to give a report. So, I guess during the period before the transition that, I guess, this measure, whatever the language was in the original bill during conference was—actually is supposed to have been included in this measure.

So, yeah. I'm not arguing that point at all. It was, was language that we did put in. Got taken out.

I wasn't part of that.

And so, I'm not arguing that. The point that I'm, I'm having is that leaving it up to the Auditor to make a determination of whether you're fit. I think the, the bill is clear. If the transfer doesn't happen, if it, you know, time runs out, then it was supposed to revert back. So, I'm not arguing that point.

I'm just saying that the bill didn't call for for there to be an evaluation of whether or not you were fit in order to continue.

I, I, I wasn't part of the—I cannot add to that in terms of what was in the original draft for the Senate. But this is 2031, right? The transfer, full transfer, is 2033, in terms of when the leases get transferred. So, I'm not sure why 2031 was chosen as the date. The other thing that this bill does—it actually takes power away from the Legislature to make one of the criticisms, is that it takes power away from the Legislature to make that determination.

Right.

Because the auditor determines solely whether or not it was supposed to be.

So, we either just include a reversion to the, to the original statue, or we don't. I, I just think that the study portion of it, and the auditor portion of it should be totally...up. Okay.

Further discussion?

I think the only thing that we can do is—this goes to another committee, so we can move it along if you want to make some amendments. That's this committee's responsibility or move it along and then it will be taken up at the next committee here.

Well, that's my main—that's my point. We, we could just leave in the reversion and send it off and not have the auditor portion of it.

But it's up to the committee, whatever we wanna do.

Further discussion? Seeing none. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah. A quick recess.

Here we're reconvening the Joint Committees on Water, Land, Culture, and the Arts, and Education for decision-making on our 1:00 PM agenda here at State Capitol Conference Room 229 on Senate Bill 2003, relating to natural resources management. Appreciate the discussion from our colleagues. We'd like to, the chairs having agreed, recommend that we move this measure forward with amendments. We're going to strike the section of the measure related to the Auditor and audit.

We're going to also add in language to address the timelines that were raised in testimony, providing for a ten-year lease extension and sublease extension.

And then, we're going to make technical amendments, add in a defective date. I'll just note the language in—which is this? Looks like Section 18 B, regarding reversion will lead in the measure as it goes to Ways and Means Committee. So, any discussion? Any comments? If not, vice chair.

[Roll Call]

Thank you.

Okay. Same rec, same recognition—recognition? Same recommendation for the Committee on Education to amend Senate Bill 2003 to an SD 1. Any discussion, members? Hearing none, chair votes aye.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. We're adjourned.

I'd like to call the committee on education to order. Today is Wednesday, February 18. It is Ash Wednesday. Those of you, including myself, who didn't get the ashes yet shame on us. It is the 102 agenda that we're working off on, and any persons testifying and we have technical difficulties, the committee will reconvene on tomorrow, which is Thursday in this Conference Room, 229 at 1PM, and a public notice will be posted on a wise legislative website.

And due to the number of measures we have on the agenda and the number of testifiers, we are limited testifiers to 1 minute. And so with that, we will start off on SB3286, which we have only 1 testifier, Jan Gouveia for the University of Hawaii. This is relating to, or requiring the University of Hawaii to develop facilities, student housing master plan, and requires a report to the legislature.

Thank you, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kim, Senator de court, Jan Gouveia. We have we stand on our written testimony. Good comments.

K. You actually give a little more details before we start asking you questions?

So in essence, the measure seeks to require the university to establish a facilities master plan that takes into consideration, broader academic issues like the projection of enrollment, different methods of pedagogy, how much is online, how much will be in person, as well as taking a look at the demographics, moving from a more traditional, or evaluating what the characteristics of a a student might be, which might be moving away from the more traditional, you know, straight out of high school kind of characteristics versus, adult learners, second kind of career education efforts.

So the Bill seeks to have the university take a look at all of that system wide and then develop a facilities plan to support that the growth in those areas.

Okay. And so do you have any recommendations in the way of your opposition?

We it's a broader as we laid out in our testimony, our written testimony, you know, we do support the intent of putting together a plan. The criteria and the elements that's identified in the Bill is a very heavy lift across all 10 campuses. And actually, it should be developed. That's really the academic strategy. And that needs to be developed before the facilities plan is developed.

So as we laid out, in our testimony, we recommend that the university be given some time to to develop that broader academic strategy from which the facilities plan, can develop. So does the university does not have any plans in pass regarding Facilities? Facilities and student housing. Do you have any plans?

So the university does not have any plans in pass regarding Facilities? Facilities and student housing. Do you have any plans?

Yes. So the university has 6 year CIP plans. This is our latest. It's on our website, and we can happy to bring you hard copies. It covers 3 bienniums.

So this this, we are in the beginning stages of the second biennium. It's from f y 24 through f y 29. And it does lay out a facilities master plan. What it does not specifically incorporate are the different methods of pedagogy and how much is going to be online. What do we anticipate the body heat to be on campus?

Perhaps the type of facilities we need moving forward would be more technology based instead of your standard classroom that where the pedagogy is, lectern style. So all of that is not incorporated in this plan. This was based more on our deferred maintenance and just where the the growth, was kind of anticipated to be based on

the age of a building. So maybe I should ask them for questions. And let me just finish this now. So when you folks have been doing your CIP, whether it was Sinclair, McCarthy Mall, even Atherton, and all of those things were going on, were you guys following any kind of plan?

These well, the there is a plan, but like and it anticipates 6 years of it forecasts out 6 years. Sometimes things get added to the plan, In the case of the Sinclair Library Student Success Center, that was a priority that the provost, Michael Bruno, provost Bruno really wanted to see happen. So that got inserted as a priority. That was based on, a lot of data that we received.

And when we were putting together the 6 year plan, we did survey, students at Manoa to see what type of spaces they would like to see more on campus or what kind of spaces needed to be improved.

We've thought that a lot of it would be the classroom and other type of, you know, teaching spaces. Oddly or I shouldn't say oddly. Surprisingly, a lot of the feedback that we got from students was they were kind of more concerned about having spaces where they could gather and study, at night in safe places, because Manoa really did not have a lot of those type of spaces. So based on that survey, Provost Bruno made the student success center priority.

project. I guess that raises some concerns because it seems like whether you have a plan or not that things get inserted or deleted. I know in the care of Sinclair, we talked about possibly putting floors above to be student housing, student dormitories. Yes. And, you know, that wasn't considered.

You added on a 5th Floor but, I mean, honestly, it wasn't considered. I know we talked about it at length, but that never came to fruition. We had the Atherton where the innovation center, and we've already have the Manoa Innovation Center. We have the Innovation Center at the business school, a number of them in Kakaako, yet that was still supported. Right.

And then we said, well, why don't we put the innovation center in Sinclair because that's where they seem to be using the innovation center at the Atherton as a student gathering, not as much as an innovation from what we can tell in the reports we've gotten. And that wasn't put to heated or done. And then you did McCarthy Mall, which, you know, I don't know where that came from.

Of course, it came from no plan and added more money, and it was for drainage ditch, but that decision was made. So again, it seems like either absent of a plan or even when there is a plan, that's not being followed to suit.

And and the concern is the cost. The monies that would come out of the rim, the monies that come out of the tuition funds, those are all areas and then the delays, the constant delays, not to mention the demolishment of the PBN Building, and yet we still haven't seen anything on that plot, any plans, definitive plans on what you're gonna do once you demolish the PBN Building.

So again these are all up in the air and I can see why this Bill has surfaced. Yeah. So with that, Senator Hashimoto, questions?

Oh, Senator DeCorte.

Thank you. Jen, excuse me.

What is the total deferred maintenance backlog today?

For the 10 campus system, it's about a billion.

Because now we're getting to the point where University of Hawaii, it's become deferred maintenance, but now it's turning into a liability. Right? And so without the safety issues Liability, those kinds of things. I just wanted to clarify my statement. Okay.

But then also without University of Hawaii having a plan in place, a master plan in place almost forces the hand of the legislature to give you folks an extension. Meanwhile, taxpayers are being asked to front the Bill over and over again. So I think we're falling into this place where there seems to be a delay in the master plan but then again, it's becoming very fiscally irresponsible for the department to continue to expect more funds.

So how does a university plan on justifying the funds requested when there's when there's no master plan? And then you've got about a billion dollars in deferred maintenance backlog.

Yeah.

So we we do have a master plan with that. There's a significant amount in the plan that addresses the deferred maintenance and the strategy behind it. At a really high level, the university needs about a $100,000,000 a year just to keep the status quo. So, the because we have limited funding, we try to be a little more resourceful in how we spend a dollar.

And so in addition to what we use surveys and we do data gathering to really help to prioritize what the kind of the students want to be want to have and experience on campus, and that is 1 factor.

We take a look at, facilities that are in high use and in high demand, and that kind of factors into what becomes a priority. In addition to that, we do consider where the future growth needs to be. So there is a semblance of a plan. It probably is not the perfect plan, and so we will acknowledge that and acknowledge the need to improve in those areas. But I we'd be happy to provide you a copy of our, University of Hawaii plan, CIP plan.

It's a 6 year plan that at least incorporates some of the principles, but probably, not to the extent, that that you should expect or we should expect of ourselves. So we'll work on that.

And then last follow-up, chair. Thank you so much. But then I also think within your folks' plan that the legislature appropriates the funds, but then you folks can move those funds onto other projects and other priority areas. So I think that with the plan in place, there has to be accountability, to ensuring that the money and funds that we are appropriating, it's going to these specific areas. Yeah.

So I think that a lot of that has to do with making sure that communication is across the board and us not finding out next legislative session. And we're like, woah. What happened to the other building? We thought that that was the priority. So I think a lot of it is really, ensuring that the projects are being completed in the timely, phase.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks, Vice President, for being here. So I guess what do you think we should be asking of you then in a plan versus if it's a little too much? What because I think at the end of the day, when you take a look at really what we're trying to get at is I think it's a little bit alarming. Right? And we did a lot of work on Manoa housing, but then that's only one campus in the system.

Right? I think we're we're now moving on to, you know, Hilo and they don't have a plan yet. And so that's a little bit alarming. Right? So so what is it?

I think the Bill is necessitating, you know, trying to push you guys in that direction. And so, you know, I think what is it that you're ready to do now versus waiting for the campuses is to do their other master planning?

Yeah. I think it's a combination of I think our new President. She is in the process of really focusing on the what I would say, that the academic strategy Of a university system that incorporates all 10 campuses and finding their, each respective campuses I guess, part of the overall system in the whole. It would be helpful to have that, more established and nailed down, that because that is what should be driving then the facilities plan.

So I think in our testimony, we did say it would probably take a couple of years to take to incorporate those strategies that will result in changes of how classrooms are or the educational experience on a campus is.

That's a lot of that will be driven by what president Hensel is currently putting together as the Aca the overall 10 campus system Academic strategy. That being said, you know, if we wanna focus on housing, we can do that. Definitely a housing strategy. But this is an overall 10 campus integrated system strategy that makes absolute sense and needs to be done from a facility standpoint.

It's just it can be it there's a risk of it being done in a vacuum if the academic side is not completed first. But we can you know?

But I think it's partly phases. Right? Like partly, we know when we talk with Hilo, at least their student housing, they just wanna upkeep it, but then they don't have a plan on what the upkeep is looking like. Right? And if we don't have that at step 1 Yeah.

Right? We're not even talking about the visionary of okay, we're gonna build new facilities. We're just talking about upkeeping the current stuff. Right? And so I think part of it, it's steps. So if you feel like, okay, we're only ready for maybe the existing facilities, then we need to know that too. But right? Like I think or if it's is it do we focus this Bill

on just student housing, right? Because it's facilities and student housing master plan. Like what student housing? Right? Because it's facilities and student housing master plan. Like, what what are you ready with now that what that we should be pushing on?

Right? Because I think we do wanna know what is it that we can do now and we want you guys to do it. Right? And I think part of it is you just need to tell us though that what's ready. I think if you tell us, okay it's gonna be a couple years, and that worries me actually, you know.

Yeah.

The whole enchilada, I think, is what is so if we can phase it, that would be helpful. And if what I'm hearing is student housing is the priority, which I agree, we can definitely do this student housing system wide plan, you know, within a year.

Thank you, Chair.

So, Jan, what is troubling is that here we have the University of Hawaii, and we've had a president that was there for 10 years, and now we have a new president. And in that whole time, we didn't do this master planning. I mean, how can we continue on without the plans? And when you do have a plan, then it's not being followed. So for us, you know, It's crazy how you folks are making these decisions.

And then what you know, you have a 6 year CIP plan, but is there priorities in there? Because it doesn't seem to be following a priority. How can you prioritize McCarthy Mall when there are other priorities out there? And, then we didn't would you guys do an athletics? Whatever happened to that athletics master plan?

That is it started under the prior, athletics director. It's since been halted, and the new athletics director, Matt Elliott, is going to restart it, very shortly.

Okay. But, you know, it's like every time there's somebody new, though, things stop and start again. With a master planning in mind knowing where you're going, then it shouldn't matter who's at the helm. Right? Yep.

Because if that's the master plan. Now the other thing I have to question is that this falls clearly under you. Right? But you have so many other things that's under you. How can you do a good job with with this?

This is a lot, and we're asking a lot, because it should have been done. Yeah. It should have been done years ago. Right? So it wasn't done.

But you've accumulated all of these areas in which you're overseeing. So how can you focus on this? So that's another question with the with the president as to what's the reorganization plan? Because it doesn't seem to be working.

Yes. I'm not completely sure what the reorganization plan is, but I look forward to being able to concentrate my efforts.

Yeah. So if you're going to do facilities and you're going to do, you know, housing, then that should be a major focus. I mean, you've got security you've got. I don't know what else you've got. I mean, you know, traffic control, procurement, everything.

Not anymore. Yeah. Okay. But yeah. So but still Thank you.

This is absent of that. But, you know, we had to fight for that. You guys argued against it, fought us against it. We have to shove it down your throat before doing it, and now you're happy because that was the right thing to do. But again, you know, it's that we get this pushback all the time, and it's like having to force our kids to take their medicine.

So we don't wanna do that you know because like you said, it absolutely makes sense to have this plan. Absolutely makes sense, but how come we haven't done it? And you've been in how long have you been?

Repeat? Oh, this is I'm going on my 12 year.

Okay. 12 years and no master plan. Okay. I rest my case. Right?

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Of course. No.

No question.

So I wanted to focus on the student housing. Yeah. So how many total units do you have in student housing across the state?

At Manoa, there's about 3,000 beds. And how many vacant? Oh, very little. We are at like a 97% occupancy rate.

And others?

Hilo, I don't know the details of Hilo's inventory.

You can give that to me.

Yes. Yeah. Thank you. West Oahu has no student housing. Do they need student housing?

Yes. That's the question in this plan. Yes.

Wasn't there an attempt to build student housing at some point?

Yeah. I think there is a study. There was a more what I would say, a more informal study that, so student housing, I think I just wanna put out there, there's housing and then there's the cost of housing. So when we do these studies to find out what kind of housing should the university be providing, the context to that is what are people what are students willing to pay? Because if you say do you need housing?

Most people would raise their hand. If it comes back at market prices, how many hands go down? Right? So the study really needs we need to know truly what that price point is going to be so that when we, a, can we afford to build it at that price point? And then b, if that way, do we get a 97%, you know, 98% occupancy?

But the stats don't mean anything if you guys do the study and don't do anything with it for 10 years.

Yeah. So hopefully, we will do the study that looks at what a true market study is gonna look at, not just who says they need housing, but it'll look at all the other elements like again, the price point, the type of unit, apartment style living, versus more freshmen dorm style living, all of that gets factored in. So that is the study that needs to be done at West Oahu. That has not been that was not done.

And for the amount of student housing that you that you have that are in use What percent are, you know, mainland students and what percent are local students? Do you have that count? I just know, Because we have students from the neighbor islands that come to the university that we have.

Yeah. Notionally at Manoa, it's about 60% is not are nonresident students and 40% are resident students. Notionally.

It's the same charge for both students, resident and

resident. Yes.

Thank you. Okay. No other questions. Thank you

Thank you. No other questions? Thank you very much. We're going on to Senate Bill 2802. This appropriates monies to establish a bachelor's degree programs in education and in agriculture science at Leeward Community College and fund two FTE positions and supplies to support the program. Carlos Peñaloza. Welcome.

Aloha, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, members of the committee. Carlos Peñaloza, Leeward Community College chancellor and UH West Oahu interim chancellor. On behalf of the university, we stand on our written testimony but can elaborate a little bit more. With this bill appropriating positions and funds to establish baccalaureates in teacher education as well as agriculture at Leeward Community College, the university's position is to redirect the efforts to what we've already been investing in from last year through now.

A couple of the key investments are a pretty robust exploration of the articulations between Leeward Community College and UH West Oahu University as a whole to align teacher education to be a more true two plus two without necessarily duplicating programming at adjacent institutions; additionally, the recent appointment-- my appointment over both Leeward and UH West Oahu to help alleviate some of the barriers that exist administratively to make it work. In both of these areas, we're seeing opportunities. We see the capacity that UH West Oahu has, and so the university's position is to focus in that effort at this point rather than creating duplicative programs.

Okay. Your time is up, but we're gonna have questions for you, so we're gonna have you elaborate so that none of us <unintelligible>, so we'll do that and we'll call you back up. Okay. From the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity. Okay. Please introduce yourself.

Yes. Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. Cedric Gates, here on behalf of DAB. DAB stands on its written testimony offering support of this measure. This will help contribute to the ongoing work that we have with LCC regarding our biosecurity program to train and retain workers for DAB. This is something that we prioritize in light of the recent investment by the legislature to DAB for these types of programs. And here for any questions. Mahalo.

Thank you. Carlin McFadden, testifying for Hawaii Food and Policy. Not here. Nicole Galase for Hawaii Cattlemen's Council. Brian Miyamoto for Hawaii Farm Bureau. Don't see him. Erin Mendelson, also in support, individual, and Leilani DeMello. Anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? Okay. Hearing none. Carlos, if you can come back?

So Carlos, you folks at Leeward--

--your Leeward hat on, have a two-year associate's degree here. And what this bill is asking is that you go on for two more years to get a bachelor's. But you're saying that West Oahu, which is not far away, has a four-year. So why is there a problem, and why the need for this bill if things are working?

Yes.

And so, historically, there should have always been alignment between the community colleges and the four-year institutions. Oftentimes, the curriculum begins to drift, and so what's happened is that the community college students haven't had the clearest of pathways. Additionally, when you enter at a community college, you may have the option of going to the College of Ed at Manoa or UH West Oahu.

Depending on the advising track that you take, if you end up going to the other institution, it adds on time, it adds on cost to completing the baccalaureate degrees. Over time, that drift has resulted in bigger barriers for our students to make it through. And so right now, the focus is realigning. It starts with general education, additionally the programmatic requirements so that it becomes a true two plus two where the advising is clearer and the tools that we have to promote the students going from one institution to the other are in better alignment. Right now, those are some of the technological investments that we've created to facilitate some of that advising.

The vision over this idea of having me oversee both Leeward and West Oahu is for a student to see the light at the end of the tunnel rather than right now it's blurry. You enter at the community college and you may have options but it's not always very clear. We want to clarify that and ensure that that student knows where they're moving, the progress that they're making, and that their advising plan be set in stone from the day that they matriculate and that it doesn't evolve over time. That's what the realignments in curriculum and having the removal of some of these administrative barriers will allow us to do.

You know, I'm always told that those at the University of Hawaii are the smartest people, right, in the state, and yet, to see that we've had these issues-- and we have had concerns about West Oahu. We've had the concerns about the promise of what it would bring for the people on the West Side of the island.

And yet, to hear, finally, what we've been concerned about, that there doesn't seem to be that kind of transition, that kind of connection, that kind of working together to assist the students coming out of community college so they can feel welcome and feel good about moving on and know that they're gonna be moving on, now it's great that you are in-- you're wearing two hats because you make that transition clear now because you have both interests there, but what about all the other campuses?

Because if this is continuing at all the other campuses where-- it is. They're having a hard time transferring-- not just that, but transferring their credits. Professors at the university don't wanna honor the credits because they didn't teach it. So, you know, there is this disconnect in the system. Now, it's hopeful that with this new president, things are changing, but for the past 10 years and such, it's been going on, and poor students, you know, that have not had the benefit of this kind of collaboration which should be happening.

And again, you know, some of the higher paid positions are at the University of Hawaii and yet these things are not happening. And then, you know, we get criticized, or I get criticized for being a bully for asking these questions when in fact-- or I have a vendetta. Yeah. My vendetta is for the kids, for the students, for the people of Hawaii, and somebody's gotta speak out for them if we're not doing our job.

And if it's business as usual at the university or at DOE for that matter, that, you know, there needs to be an acknowledgment and there needs to be some changes that take place. So does it take a new leadership? Perhaps. And in this case, yes. So I'm very hopeful that the new president is going to continue to look at innovative ways on how we make this transition happen so that we don't have to create more programs in every community college. Because that was never the intent, right?

That's right.

So, you know, if people like you just have to make this happen, so I hope that, you know, we can see that.

Thank you, and I will elaborate on just a little concept here. The community colleges have really focused on statewide access. The articulations and the alignments that we're working on, well, right now, the more immediate beneficiary will be Leeward and UH West Oahu. The goal is to realign so that all of the community colleges have that same pathway. And we've been doing that both in teacher education as well as in agriculture because of all of the work that we've been doing with our partner workforce folks.

Okay. Senator DeCorte.

Thank you. Will any of these funds be used for administrative overhead or is it just going directly to the students? Like--

So right now, we didn't define how these funds would be used should they be appropriated. Right now, we have existing capacity at UH West Oahu to grow the Teacher Education Program, and the goal would be to use existing resources. If there would be any realignment, it would be to support that pipeline and encourage more students to enroll in teacher education and agriculture. But right now from an administrative overhead, we're not looking at investing in those spaces.

Okay. How much-- how many students would you say these funds could service?

That's a little bit of a difficult question to answer. At this juncture, I don't wanna second-guess. I could come up with numbers and provide more to the committee.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Carlos.

Good afternoon. The department of the attorney general recommends identifying the law as a matter of state wide concern. Thank you.

Got it. Thank you. Kaheleonolani Dukelow

Aloha. Aloha. We stand on our written testimony. Mahalo. And we're available for questions. K.

Also, Tina Yamaki. Not here.

Not on Zoom, chair.

Okay. Let's see. We have a a number of others. Sherry Manoa in support, William Annalson in support, Melissa Pavachak, Kieran Polk, Johnny May Perry, Leilani Dimelo, all in support. Anyone else here wishing to testify in this measure?

Hearing none, members questions? No questions? Okay. Moving on. Senate bill 3238.

This is relating to language access, establishes a language access education and workforce development program at the University of Hawaii. Let's see. Deborah Halbert, University of Hawaii followed by Amy Agbayani.

Aloha, chair Kim, vice chair Kidani, members of the committee. My name is Alan Rosenfeld. I'm the associate vice president for academic programs and policy here on behalf of vice president Halbert. We stand on our written testimony in support of the measure. And I would just say briefly, we noted in the testimony that Kapiolani Community College offers, a series of non credit trainings, but UH Manoa does offer many more languages, in their arsenal there. So that is a benefit of the service that they can provide. Mahalo. And I'm available for questions.

Great. Thank you. Amy?

I'll extend strong support, and stand on my written testimony.

Okay. Thank you. Liza Gill? Is that Liza or Lisa?

Liza, like an alley.

Okay. Testifying for Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

Aloha, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Liza Ryan Gill with the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights. We represent about 30 immigrant serving organizations across the Pai'aina. We're in strong support of this bill, and I'll just call out, since we have the Senator from from Maui here. When we were working with Lahaina survivors, about 30% of them were limited English proficient.

We worked directly with the Department of Health and Human Services to help get bilingual, bicultural, case managers that were funded by FEMA. It was very difficult to find folks that had the proper training to be able to take those positions. And on the continent, it was also very challenging because they didn't have the right languages for here.

So right now we're graduating a number of students of about a 100 from Waipahu High School, a great program with the seal of biliteracy, just like they have similar glide paths around getting youth into health care settings. We need to make sure that we have our youth have a glide path into interpretation services because, these positions are necessary under Title six for all of our state agencies to also provide language access.

Thank you. Mike Newland? Not here.

Not on Zoom, chair.

K. Thank you. Oh my god. We have about 20 others in support of this measure. Anyone else wishing here wishing to testify on this measure?

Hearing none, members questions? I guess I have a question for University of Hawaii. Are we looking at this as a credit or noncredit?

It's not clear in the legislation, and that was, one of our requests in the testimony. It could you could if the bill could either specify whether one whether non credit is preferable or credit or both combination of both. The advantage to non credit is because in the bill, it says that intent is to serve also community members.

If you wanted to open up access so that the admissions requirement and the high costs of credit based tuition weren't a barrier to community members, then the noncredit option would be a plus. Perhaps that could be done through Outreach College.

And again, because Manoa offers languages that the other campuses do not, that could help provide the workforce demand that folks have tested.

Does the community Colleges offer languages?

Yes, they do. So I believe at Kapiolani Community College, they only offer Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, and French. So Manoa, of course, Spanish, Tagalog, Ilocano, etcetera, etcetera.

But those at the community college, is that noncredit?

They have a noncredit. Yes. Correct. And they're working to put to move it fully online and offer a series of courses. And also at Kapiolani I know what they're doing that's good is they have industry specific.

They have a course or series of courses focusing on the courts, another one for medical settings because just because you're bilingual doesn't mean you know all the terminology. If you don't know I don't know a lot of the medical terminology in English, let alone translating it in a different language. So that's also important.

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

You're welcome.

Thank you so much. So what would this program what languages would this program target as the other, community colleges do not?

Great question. So my my assumption, because I saw that the bill came through the Filipino caucus, is that, you know, fill Tagalog and and Ilocano would be central. But I think the idea is to open it up to a variety of of languages. I mentioned Spanish as an obvious example that are not offered, typically at the community colleges.

So if this, does become accredited, do you see there being this being able to partner with the workforce after they graduate? You know, like Japanese, right? So they can go work in the

Yes. So that I believe that's the intent of the bill because they do mention that a requirement is the internship, that the students could complete during their studies so that they would have these sort of articulated pathways into the workforce.

What are some of the examples of those? Industries?

Well, the possible areas I mentioned medical is one, another one's the courts. Another one is social work. And I imagine I heard that there were 20 different testifiers. They probably have more examples of where there's a need.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Any questions? Amy, you have a question. Okay

Thank you. So I guess a question to university why, is that gonna add any cost as far as if we go credit and non credit? If it's a quick answer, you can answer there. If not, come forward. And I guess there's cost on both sides.

But right now on the side of the university, is there additional cost to deliver both?

I don't wanna say that there's that there's no costs, but, of course, especially when you're talking about tuition based and the students are paying at higher tuition rates that that offsets the cost of the instruction. But, generally speaking, as long as I mean, my personal analysis or belief is that if you have full classes and students are paying tuition, then the classes usually balance out.

I think where we run into deficiencies is where we have classes where you're paying the instructor, but there's only a handful of students. So But

you can put you can put requirements on there that you only hold the classes. You can Yes. Have so many seats. Right? You can

Yes. And they can hopefully recruit cohorts, and then they can offer both courses. Because they already have the language courses. So I think the capacity exists there. But where they might need to build out is to have the industry specific, focus that's already in place at Kapiolani.

So you can go and do noncredit and it feel like, oh, this is something I really wanna go and get credit. Then you can transfer or or change to your credit?

Well, so you'd have to be admit if it's UH Manoa, then if you want to do credit at Manoa, you have to be admitted as a student. Right.

But you get would you get any kind of credit? The fact that you've done the noncredit?

I think that is it seems like that's the intent of the bill. And that's also it seems like what they're focusing on Kapiolani because they say they're trying to build those pathways, I believe, from, noncredit into credit. And yes. And also as, the past test for Amy Agbayani mentioned that there are students who already are credit based and have the language skills, that they could already tap into that market as well. So thank you.

Thank you. Okay. No other questions. We are moving on. Senate Bill 3062.

This provides the University of Hawaii and its campuses and state libraries may utilize liquor in certain educational settings without obtaining liquor licenses subject to certain limitations.

A lot of people on this one as well. Keith Hayashi, Mercy of Hawaii. I'm sorry, from DOE.

Hello, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, members of the committee, Shanta Jima, assistant superintendent, testifying on behalf of the Department of Education. The department stands on our written testimony, which provides comments on this measure. The department is requesting a specific amendment to exclude libraries that are on or near school campuses. Liquor possession or use of alcohol is strictly prohibited on public school campuses.

And state law, HRS 281-39.5 prevents the issuance of liquor license to any establishment located within 500 feet of an elementary, intermediate, or high school to further limit alcohol presence near campuses.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. We stand by for questions.

Okay. Thank you. Louis Hokuana.

Hi, chair, vice chair, committee members. My name is Denise Yoshimura Yamamoto. I'm the associate vice president for the community colleges on behalf of here on behalf of Louis Hokuana. We stand strongly support this measure and stand by our testimony, but I'm here for any questions you may have.

Okay. Thank you. Kieran Polk, Chamber of Commerce of Kapolei on Zoom.

Not on Zoom, chair.

On Zoom? Okay. Stacy Aldrich with comments and Johnny Mae Perry opposing. Anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none, let's see.

Members questions. Questions. Questions. Go ahead, Senator.

This is for the libraries.

Libraries? Sean?

My question: How will they control the amount of alcohol that is being brought in? Is there going to be police presence? What, to make sure that other library users are not jeopardized?

Again, I'm not testifying for them, but when I when I watch stuff on TV where you have these little bookstores or you have places where they have, like, a little coffee bar or perhaps a wine bar that the definitive places that you can be in, you can't take it outside or something. I don't know. I'm just guessing. But, yeah. Of course, you guys, TV is real.

Don't you know that? I'm kidding. Senator before.

Yeah. I was actually going to ask a similar question to that. Thank you, Senator Kidani. So maybe Sean, if you could come up. So currently, your administrative rule says that alcohol is not permitted within 500 feet of schools.

That's a law.

Yeah. And so is this more of an enforcement effort? Is it more of yeah. So I'll I'll say that. Is it more of an enforcement effort or or what will try what is the accomplishment of this? Because it's already in law.

I think we're just we're just saying that as something to support not having it on or near our school campuses.

Within 500 feet?

Correct.

Okay.

So do you have libraries within state libraries within 500 feet of the schools?

We have some on campus. Yeah.

So this will only apply, your situation only applies for those that are not on campus or outside of the 500 feet.

Yeah. Like our state library here and so other libraries that might.

Correct.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Can I have UH. So how does UH envision, I can, I'm envisioning some things, but how does UH envision this having the ability to have liquor in some of your establishments?

Yeah. So we feel that it will be beneficial for a lot of our r and d, part of our workforce training program with our culinary, with our Culinary Institute of the Pacific as well. You know, we it will be a training restaurant. Anytime we would be serving or handling alcohol, it will be for educational purposes. We do not want to compete with any local bars or anything like that.

We would comply with yellow card training for anybody who is handling the liquor. But it's to allow us to be able to have some flexibility, you know, to bring alcohol for distilling processes to learn, put it into recipes, cosmetology, but also for food service. You know, it's always a it can be an element in recipe in, our culinary programs, but also really mainly for our restaurant as well.

So currently in the culinary programs, liquor is not handled in any way or incorporated in any way.

So we do have some instances where our culinary programs are actually run by a third party. And through that third party, they are able to establish a liquor license, and they take that liability. And then we also do have more times when we have events and we do get the liquor license for the day or for the event. Yeah? But we don't, you know, host any type of liquor event.

Yeah.

Is it the intention for the university to possibly look at this in broadening, like, say, after hours at their student cafeterias or, like, in West Oahu, you have the ACM little area there where kids hang out and get refreshments, stuff like that. Is there intent by the university to at some point look at including liquor?

The only way that I can envision that to be, related would be if it was then, the servers were a part of our culinary program and it was a culinary event, then I can see that happening. But it's definitely not for us to hold a party or, again, to compete with any establishment that serves liquor.

I see. Okay. Thank you. Members, any other questions? No other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Senate Bill 3024. This is relating to sex bias discrimination, clarifies and strengthens the state protection against sex based harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation that occur in public schools, Harvard Charter Schools, or at the University of Hawaii, including discrimination based on gender identity of expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, and pregnancy related conditions, establishes procedures for investigation, decision making, and requires mandatory reporting by certain employees. We have a number of testifiers, starting with Chris Caulfield, testifying for the Democratic Party of Hawaii Education Caucus.

Not here.

Hoku Pak. Not here. Candace Park, deputy. Candace.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, members. Deputy Park had to step out. I'm Anne Horiuchi from the department of the attorney general. As noted in our testimony, the department is recommending an amendment, adding a statement identifying the bill as a law of statewide concern. Thank you for the opportunity.

Okay. Thank you. Sandy Livingston?

Not on Zoom, Chair.

Okay, not on Zoom. Nicholas Laverne Lavernus. Sorry. Laverne's.

Also not on Zoom.

Okay. Abby Simmons?

Not on Zoom, chair.

Not on Zoom. Okay. Elizabeth, Jubeen Fujiwara on Zoom. Aloha, Elizabeth.

Oh, sorry, Chair. Elizabeth is not on Zoom at the moment, but we have Anna Ezzy instead.

Okay, I'm sorry. Anna Ezzy. Is that what you said? Yes.

Yes, Chair.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome, Anna.

Aloha, Chair Kim, vice chair Kidani, and members of the committee. My name is Anna Ezzy. I'm testifying in support of SB 3024 on behalf of Every Voice Hawaii. We're a student survivor, and recent alum led coalition working to address gender violence on college campuses, and we're in strong support of this bill because the current federal.

But if the, if this were to be a compliance ceiling, it would effectively tie school administrators hands behind their backs to when it comes to dealing with the most common forms of sexual misconduct. And you can see stories from frustrated students in my written testimony. But by strengthening state protections, the legislature can give Hawaii schools the legal tools to implement best practices and create truly safe campuses free from sex based discrimination. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you, Anna. Laura Nakanilua on Zoom.

Aloha, Chair and committee members. I stand in opposition of this bill for reasons that include the existing Title X laws that we all are well acquainted with. I feel as though this law, this proposed legislation goes far beyond clarifying protections and instead imposes sweeping mandates that create some legal uncertainty, heightened liability, and substantial administrative challenges to our public schools.

By requiring access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and sex segregated facilities and activities based solely on gender identity, the bill, I feel, overlooks critical privacy and safety needs, especially for young children in enclosed intimate spaces where vulnerability is heightened and supervision is often simply limited.

So I, you know, would ask that schools have the flexibility to implement reasonable and evidence-based policies that prioritize first and foremost the protection and comfort of all of our students, particularly minors, while preserving biologically grounded distinctions in such private settings and in competitive sports.

Thank you, Laura. Your time is up. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Michael Golojuch in support.

Good afternoon. Michael Golojuch Jr, he/him pronouns from the, president of Private Work Hawaii. First off, we'd like to say happy thumb-up appreciation day. All joking aside, we stand in strong support of this legislation. I'd like to thank the previous testifier for highlighting the need for this bill.

We've seen day after day for the last year and a month, constant attacks against protections for our LGBTQIA plus community of survivors of sexual abuse. We need to we need we need more protections, not loss. This codifies was supposed to be happening in Title IX and protects our students. And as you see in our testimony that this this is sorely needed, we encourage you to pass it and send the message loud and clear that we will protect all of our students no matter K through university.

Thank you for hearing this bill.

We look forward to it passing. Mahalo.

Thank you. Scott Johansen. Also on Zoom.

Yes. Hello.

Aloha.

Aloha. Sorry. Trying to turn the video on. My name is Scott Johansen. I am an individual, individual in support of this bill 3024

The athletics page does signify and tell us that athletics is an important part, not just for athletics in itself, but it's a part of our life. It's part of the education process. It is provides lots of values and to exclude people based on their gender identity needs to be protected. You cannot protect people's rights by excluding other people of that same rights. Please vote yes for this bill.

Thank you.

Thank you. Joey Badua on Zoom.

My name is Joey Badua. Justifying as my person, as a trans person, as someone who went to public school, as someone who did not have the language to say how my gender identity was when I was young. And hearing all the hate from the testimony today and reading them, it, it pains me. It makes me feel like I do not belong as someone who's gender non-binary. I would I'm also a Catholic, and God told us to love each other.

He reached out to the worst of the worst, you know, and we are being depicted as the worst of the worst. We are being depicted the same way Epstein is is as as a pervert or whatever. But look, no trans people are on the Epstein list on the on files. Okay? We're just regular people wanting to mine our business.

And so this is someone who lives this key. And I urge you to look within your hearts to see, to clock the hate to clock the hate and support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Cameron Miyamoto on Zoom.

Aloha, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, and members of the Senate Committee on Education. Mahalo for this opportunity to testify today in strong support of SB 3024. My name is Cameron Miyamoto, and I'm the co-president of PFLAG Oahu. We represent parents, friends, families of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people. Our families are loving of our LGBTQ students and want to ensure they'll be continued to have safe learning environments in K through 12 and our universities.

Our families are scared for the well-being of their students, and we really want to ask you to pass this bill today so that we can ensure them that they'll be protected as legislation and mandates are coming down across the nation, which are not supportive of our LGBTQ students. So please vote today in support of SB 3024. Mahalo.

Thank you. Michael Hurley.

Hello. My name is Michael Hurley. I am government affairs counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression or fire testifying against two parts of this bill. We all agree that universities have a moral and legal obligation to respond to sexual misconduct, but currently, this bill crosses two important constitutional lines. First, its definition of sex based harassment is overbroad and out of step with both supreme court precedent and title nine regulations.

The supreme court has defined student-on-student harassment as behavior so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that students are effectively denied equal access to an institution's opportunities. Many courts have cited Davis to strike down overbroad harassment definitions like this bill's, noting that they reach speech protected by the First Amendment. This bill's definition falls far short of the Davis standard and will reach campus protests, student media, and other protected speech.

Second, the bill lacks basic procedural protections constitutionally required by courts, or through federal Title IX regulations, including providing respondents with a detailed notice of allegations, holding the hearing, and allowing each party access to all the evidence in the institution's possession. Identify more gaps in my written testimony, and I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you very much. Jen Gouveia, University of Hawaii.

The University of Hawaii stands on its written testimony with comments.

Jen, would you like to share some of the comments considering the nature of all of us?

Yeah. I think I was just scrolling through the, the federal regulations on Title IX with regards to the process for how to deal with the complaint and the investigation process. It's fairly detailed. It's, like, 26 pages long. And we are still combing through, I think, some of the more detailed nuances of the measure.

But, but there is concern for there being some conflict between the way the bill is currently written and some of the express language of the federal regulations. So we would encourage, probably, experts, legal experts with title nine background to really kind of comb through all of this and see make sure that we're not putting the university or the DOE in a situation where complying with one will mean noncompliance with another.

Okay. We'll call up the AG after this. Keith Hayashi, DOE.

Good afternoon, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, members of the committee. Sean Bacon, assistant superintendent for the Office of Talent Management, speaking on behalf of the department. We stand on our written testimony offering comments in just a little bit to elaborate. So the department supports really the intent of this to strengthen protections against sex based harassment and discrimination.

We wanna note that we currently use existing state administrative rules and board policies to cover some of the gender identity protections that are absent in the 2020 Title IX regulations.

I think one of the things that we'd like to really dig into a little bit deeper on this is some of the definitions. One, for example, is like decision maker. For decision maker for a student, for example, when we're using Chapter 19, the decision maker may be a school-level administrator. When we're using Title IX regulations, it could be a panel decision-maker. Also, there can be some distinctions between classified and certificated employees within the department.

So we're available for answering any other additional questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Younghee Overly for AAUW. Aloha.

Aloha, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, and members of our committee. Thank you for this opportunity. I am representing AAUW Hawaii, whose mission is to advance gender equity through education and advocacy. We must, we are in strong support of SB 3024 to strengthen Hawaii state Title IX law against weakened protection against discrimination, gender-based discrimination, based on the federal Title IX rollback on regulation.

I did want to we we have submitted our testimony, but I did want to respond to some of the things that was said here.

I see. I ran out of basically, I want to point out that we had a theory regulation on transgender students since 2016. I'd be happy to share that with you. I also agree with the UAE and DOE that we could update administrative rules to match if you pass this. We did this in 2018.

I believe we could do it again to protect transgender students. Thank you for listening.

Thank you very much. See, Maddox Tsuchiya. Welcome.

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Maddox Kavi Tsuchiya testifying as a private citizen as well as the president of the debate team at UH Manoa. I would like to stand on my written testimony as well as providing additional comments as to key opposition to this bill. There is vast concerns regarding whether or not this bill is still in line with federal Title IX guidelines.

I would like to specify that within the bill itself, it adds on additional practices for investigations and decision-making, but it doesn't add a clause that says, oh, and also disregard every single other federal mandate.

Already follows federal laws in countless other areas from the first amendment to Brown v Board of Education, and has done this for years and years and years and years. This bill eliminates none of that. It maintains that the university must follow every single federal law that does exist. It only enshrines further protections and requires that the university respond to the 265 Title IX complainants of which they only investigated two in their act two four two reporting. I think the legislature wants.

Okay, thank you very much. Christian Fern, University of Hawaii, professional assembly with comments. Let's see, we have we're not gonna need everybody's name because we have 53 in support.

We have opposing seven and comments from four. Is anyone else here or on Zoom wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none, members, we are open for questions. Question, Senator Kidani.

This is both for someone from the university as well as DOE. How are you now handling the transgender bathroom facility issues?

Good afternoon. Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, and members of the committee.

I'm Nicole Isa-Ijima. I'm with the Department of Education, the civil rights compliance branch. So in regards to our transgender youth, we do have our guidance and supports for transgender students that has been in effect since our twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen school year. And in terms of facilities such as access tubes, restrooms, and locker rooms, our transgender our our students are allowed to access to facilities that are aligned with their gender identity.

Okay. And how are the other students taking this? Do you have complaints? Have you had any issues?

Since 2016, we have had some concerns for some students.

From students or from their parents?

From parents. Students are more under in our experiences, students tend to be more on the side of their peers and very supportive. In terms of concerns with parents, it hasn't been many. I don't think it's been more than a handful, but I can't don't quote me on that.

In terms of that, what we do is that we allow if any students, transgender or non transgender, has any kind of privacy concerns, then we do offer alternatives for them, just a single-stall, gender neutral faculty or health facilities for use.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair. To answer your question.

Can you identify yourself?

Oh, I'm sorry. Jennifer Rose. Office of Institutional Equity. Also, I am the interim Title IX coordinator for Manoa. We have executive policies that are in place specifically protecting students based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

After the 2020 regulations were put in place, we strengthened all of our policies and procedures. And when the Biden regulations were vacated, we went back and reverted to those procedures. As far as a specific question about restrooms, we have both designated all, gender restrooms for students to access as well as a separate male and female facilities. As far as complaints, we are unaware of any concerns or requests for opt-out of shared facilities as of today.

Okay. So what you're saying is, for gender equity, the student that a female student who feels that she is a male can go into the male bathroom, and you haven't had complaints.

We have not received complaint any complaints to any of our Title IX offices. I mean, we recently checked on this, sir, with a data point that was requested, as recently as three weeks ago. So that is that is current. So there have been no official complaints that have been made.

Or any kind of incidents?

Not that I am aware of as the Manoa Title IX coordinator or that I've been made aware of from other Title IX coordinators from the other nine campuses.

Thank you. And for DOE, also no incidents that you are aware of?

Thank you.

Our office has not been aware of any incidents regarding our transgender use and restrooms.

Question. Can you respond to the testimony that of the numerous, numerous complaints that only two have been investigated by the department or the university?

Thank you, Chair. I think I understand it. That's from we have first of all, I wanna thank the Women's Legislative Caucus and both the chair chair and vice chair for your leadership on Title IX issues. As you probably know, we worked with the women's legislative caucus during the pre-session. We had shared our act two forty two annual data, which some of these questions I think are coming from.

I think there might be some misunderstanding, both from our climate survey data, which we have done by independent researcher OmniTrack. I think you're familiar with them. And then our act two forty two data, which is required by the legislature in September as an annual report. So I think some of the data that's being referenced is from the year before because the this year's data, I I don't hear it being quoted as far as the number of complaints moving forward. It's the aggregate number.

Of formal complaints. This doesn't mean that students aren't seeking support. I mean, as a Title IX coordinator, I meet with students on a regular basis. A lot of students are seeking supportive measures, which we work in very great detail with them to ensure they want to no contact order if they want academic adjustments if they want support with mental health and other community resources. That's something that both Title IX coordinators, confidential advocates, and everybody that's trained in this area can do.

It doesn't mean that students necessarily want to go forward with a formal investigation, and many choose not to. Also, because of the wisdom of the state legislature in 2016, our faculty members are mandatory reporters. So that means that of the 300 and something reports, many of them are from third-party folks like faculty members or campus security. And then when we actually do the reach out to the students or to the victims, they may not want to engage in the process at all.

They might be a domestic violence survivor that is trying to navigate through and making sure that getting their education is the number one priority. So we work very closely with both community advocates and campus advocates to that end.

So I think what I would love to see chair is, during the interim, we have offered, the women's legislative caucus to have a briefing so that you can understand the data in a more qualitative manner, and the Women's Legislative Caucus co-chair representative Ichiama has encouraged us to try to provide more qualitative data because there's only certain data points that are being requested so that you can have a fuller picture of sort of all of the points in which students are engaging in the process.

Also, in our climate survey, we have actually done a comparison with National based on the AU University. So those are the research one institutions across the country. We are doing far better in terms of students awareness of resources and students awareness of the Title IX coordinator much better than the national. I'm happy to provide that data for you.

Could we be doing better? Yes, but we also support survivor autonomy so that we're not forcing students into a formal investigation process if they don't feel comfortable or safe in doing that. And thank you for the opportunity to answer that question.

Okay, let me further ask questions. So, how many complaints aggregate complaints did you receive last year?

I don't have the data for the aggregate in front of me.

I think you reported. Just really quick. If you can just give us a number.

For school year 2022-2023, that is the most recent action four two report that is publicly available. This is why everyone testifying has cited that information rather than any data report.

Okay. And what's that number?

A 194 did not move forward informally or formally. I understand that that was a key concern. Only two of those received a full investigation from the university in which an official decision was rendered.

265 complaints.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you for that.

And that would also be because those are the students that are choosing to move forward formally. So you have to look at the subset of the ones who choose to move forward formally to get look at what the actual final outcome is. I mean, I can actually digest some of that data for you and, and give it to you. And I actually would love to meet with you two on on that data.

That's gonna be my next question. Have you reached out to the student body? Because I know a lot of the testifiers are from the university. So, is there been some kind of dialogue with them explaining the data and so forth?

I mean, we have had some conversations with student affairs folks, and I had done a reach out last year to our system-wide student government. But I do think that we should have more conversations around I don't I don't in terms of the safety issues, and moving forward, I think what we could do in our climate survey is do more of a drill-down of what the specific barriers are to moving forward because it all kind of gets lumped together.

Some students do not move forward because they think what's happening to them, it's not it's not serious enough to violate the policy. So that means we need to do more education. Some students choose to not move forward because they don't want to put themselves at risk against somebody who may be a perpetrator, that's a fellow student or even understood.

Another employee.

So, yeah, we don't have the time to really go into all of it. I think these are this is very important, but it's important that you reach out to the students at the university, especially a number of them who might be on the fence at this point and not sure if they should be filing or not filing. But I think it's important that you not just meet with representatives, but you somehow have these public forums.

I agree. We will do that.

Give them the opportunity to, to voice these concerns and room for us to improve.

Thank you. We'll do that.

Okay. Members, any further questions on this?

If not, I wanna call the AG out. Candice. So, Candice, you heard the testimony that there are concerns, legal concerns, constitutional concerns. Is that something that your office looked at when you looked at this bill?

I, I believe they have, but I don't know if they've come to a conclusion. But I can ask them to report back.

Okay. As we move forward, we would like that. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Members of no other questions? If not, thank you, everyone. We are moving on to.

Sorry to interrupt, chair. We have a lead comer on Zoom for Elizabeth Fujiwara.

Okay. Elizabeth, go ahead. Thank you for that reminder. Elizabeth?

Can you hear, can you hear me now, Chair?

Yes.

Oh, great. What I mostly wanted to say was that I think the concern here is that with the Trump administration basically tearing apart the federal DOE and there is no longer an office of civil rights that's really able to investigate, that if we are able to adopt this bill as it is or make whatever modifications are necessary, it would really help the children, especially the young girls in middle school and high school. I think that's the reality of what's going on on the ground.

And the DOE staff, I believe, are doing their best at this point, but they just need more guidance and new legislation to help them go forward because of the Trump administration.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, chair. Appreciate it.

Thank you. We're gonna move on to, Senate Bill 896, senate draft one, relating to the to education, establish new requirements for teacher ed. I'm sorry.

Require the Department of Education to submit annual reports to the legislature outlining certain information concerning capital improvement projects, require reports to be posted on DOE's website annually in a searchable format, and provides that any CIP funds are covered for more than five years without commencement of construction shall be specifically identified and justified, or shall be subject to legislative review for revision or reassignment. With that, we're calling up Senator Adhoiachif, DG's office.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Anne Horiuchi from the Attorney General's Office. As we noted in our testimony, the new section being added to 302A by section 2 of the bill requiring the annual that the DOE submit an annual CIP report to the legislature. Just based on the way that Chapter 302A is organized, we suggest actually adding that section to part 5 of 302A rather than part 4.

We think, structurally, that makes, organizationally, it makes a bit more sense. Also, the pilot program within DOE's Office of Facilities and Operations that would authorize superintendent to redesignate funded vacant positions as positions exempt from Chapter 76. Because wages are a mandatory subject of bargaining, we think that to address any kind of of issue with the language in the bill, we've suggested an amendment in our testimony. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Keith Hayashi, Department of Education.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Jesse Souki, Deputy Superintendent of Operations for the Department of Education. The department stands on its written testimony, which provides comments on the measure. But in summary, the Department of Education supports the goals of the bill regarding improved CIP transparency and technical staffing.

But request flexibility to align reporting requirements with existing data systems, clarifying that attached agencies are excluded because they report differently and consideration regarding potential pay disparities created by the pilot program for exempt positions, allowing the adjustment of other salaries for equity. Thank you.

Thank you. Johnnie-Mae Perry in support. Kauanui Sabas opposing for HGEA. Anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? If not, questions, Members? Jesse, question. Have you folks compiled the CIP as we asked?

The request from your office?

Yes.

We did submit a compilation based on the template that was sent to us from your office based on what WAM committee had requested. And, subsequently, you let me know in a hearing that that wasn't what you asked for.

You said you were gonna get me, and you didn't.

So we're working back and forth with your office to get to a template that is acceptable.

Jesse, we sent you the exact template that you guys sent us in 2023. No deviations. No. Nothing. We have we gave it to you guys. I don't know how come you can't just follow that.

So we follow the template that was sent to us from a request from WAM that was not the one that you had requested. So we followed that.

You a copy of the 2023 submittal that was, I don't know, 50 pages. We sent you copies of that. And we said this is what we want, and we never got anything like that. We had different kinds. We had different, but it...

Yeah. We so, yeah, we did submit something, and we're working with your office on making some adjustments to that. So we get it in a way that's acceptable.

Okay. Questions, Members? Senator Hashimoto.

Deputy, I so I think, you know, I'm looking at your testimony regarding the pilot program for hiring, you know, exempt positions. You know, I guess this is our attempt at trying to figure out what can we do to make, you know, the some of the problems in the facilities branch kind of get figured out.

And so, you know, I know it's not perfect, but I think part of it is what we need from you is what exactly do you need to make something like this work? I think there's some semblance that, you know, there's some changes that you folks want. But are we, like, what we really need to understand is would you do this? Number one, if we give this to you, if this is not the solution, then what is it that you guys need to fix facilities?

So we support the concept there. And when I say the concept, I mean providing increased, the ability to provide increased salary for engineers and architects and folks working on these delivery of CIP would be very helpful because we're competing with the open market and salaries are high. We were just asking that you allow us to have parity with other positions that are existing. I haven't read the union's testimony, but I'm sure that that might be part of it, parity part. So we want some flexibility with that.

But you think it's workable?

It's gonna be helpful. Yeah. I would have to work with our Office of Talent Management to figure out how to implement it, but it's helpful. It would be helpful. We've also we've increased salaries a bit, and staff tells me that we're able to recruit a couple of positions because of that. We recently did that about a year ago. So but that's not as high...

But we still have the delta though.

Yeah. It's the delta with the market.

Thank you, Chair.

Other questions? Yeah. Thank you. Oh, Senator DeCorte.

Thank you, Jesse. When do you think you would be able to get that report to Chair?

So we sent we sent a, you know, so after we were told that, you know, we need to make adjustments, we sent Senator's office staff what we thought might be a good one. And there was comments, and we got it back. And we're going through the comments, and then we saw this bill.

So we kinda wanted to after we had we're done with this bill, then, you know, we might make more tweaks talking to staff and then get that to them. We've already started compiling what we think, you know, would meet the requirement. But we'd like to get the columns cleared away, so we get it the way that the office wants it. So I mean, that's a long answer. I'm sorry. But I heard about two weeks.

It wasn't an answer. Okay. Two weeks? Okay. That's an answer. Okay. Thank you. No. I know. But but no. I think that, you know, the system you folks really have to kind of get a secure, stable system because different entities within the DOE system has their own kind of data, their own database, if you call it that. But I think to be able to secure the information that the leg is needing to be able to support the department is important.

And so I think that if we're still in the phases of gathering the data to make sure that we are making an informed decision, we are supporting the department in what you folks need to do. But then also that we're not getting strung along either. And I think we're close. I think we're getting there. So that's the only comment I wanted to say. Thank you, Chair.

So this is what we sent you folks. You sent us in 2020. This is it. The column design obligated fund, design obligation date, construction obligation funds, construction obligation date, status, estimated project completion, and I think we added one more column. So what I got in response to this is this. And then, I'm sorry. We got this first in June 2025, which said there was an answer to that. It doesn't even look close to it. This is you have two columns. This one has so many.

And then from this, you guys sent me this, which another three columns, which again is not what we asked for, not complete. But we gave you this, and this is what you sent us. We didn't make this up. This is what you sent us. We have a cover letter signed by the or by the superintendent. Okay? And then you told us you're gonna get us something by Monday at the last hearing, and this is what we completely get. I don't understand.

Yeah. We so we sent you by Monday. So the original deadline, I think, was Wednesday, and we needed more time, so we asked for more time. We got it in on Monday. We followed the template you that you sent us, but it was not the template that from it was not the same format of what we sent you previously. What we was we're given was the format that was requested by WAM in a separate different request. So we followed that.

But this letter is to, it's from the superintendent, and it's in response to WAM. It's in response to WAM. So this is what you sent us in 2023 in response to the WAM question. And this is what I asked for several times before June submittal, and we sent copies of this so you folks know exactly what you sent to us because I guess you didn't you don't know what the right hand and left hand is doing at this point. And then we get all these other things. I don't understand. How many pictures do I have to send you so we can get it in the in the form that you originally sent us?

We really wanna get it right for you. We're really trying.

Okay. I'm just flabbergasted that we send you exactly what we asked for exactly, and you sent us this. Then why can't you make the columns and give us that information?

Yeah. The one we sent you recently was the...

The one you sent me recently is this one.

Yeah. That's the one. Yeah. And then we have comments.

It doesn't have all of the information on here.

Yeah. So we have to fix it. So we're working on that.

So in June, you sent me this, and it wasn't all information. You said you're gonna fix it. Then you send me this in February, then you say you're gonna fix it. And then now you're telling us you're gonna send us one more. I don't know what to say. And then people wonder why I get so frustrated. Yeah. Something's wrong with the delivery. Superintendent, do you wanna come and comment on this? Because this is your people. You know what we're asking for. Are you satisfied with what was being what is being sent to us? Do you know what is being sent to us?

Hey, Senator. In talking with Deputy Souki and our facilities development branch, I do know that they've been diligently working with your office to try to get the information that you're requesting. I realize that the data that was sent to you in 2023, that's what I believe deputy was asking, coordinating with your office to get that information together. If I'm not mistaken that this was sent to your office. It wasn't what you had asked for. So that's what we're working on trying to get.

Superintendent, I'm only asking for the form in which you sent us in 2023. Okay? In 2023 as a request by WAM from Senator Dela Cruz, you sent this. This is your work product, not ours. And all I'm asking for is an update of this. An update. Okay.

The one we recently sent is the... Not the...

I want, I'm not asking for anything new. I'm not making up anything. I want an update of what you provided so we can compare to see what changes has been made, what projects are still working or not there. Just update this. That's all. Simple. How many times do we have to do this?

So just for clarity because really gonna wanna get it right. You you want it exactly like that? Because the one that your office is working with us is is different from that. But we can we can give you that.

My understanding is we sent you a copy of this. Why would I why would I ask for anything out? We sent this, and I think we wanted a final update because it doesn't say, it says com estimated project completion shortage, and it misses hundreds, thousands of dollars, but you don't tell us is it finished? Is it done? So we wanted one more column to say finish or done. But again, this is information that you provided.

I wanna update. I wanna see if ʻAikahi Elementary's roof is finished. It says here construction. It says estimated project completion shortage, $43,000. What does that mean? Okay? You have projects on here that we don't know what the status is. And I'm gonna wanna update. All of these projects, we want an update. That's all we're asking for. I don't know how difficult. This is not rocket science. This is not even PhD level. This is 101. Follow the columns and give us the data. It's like fill in the blanks.

With the additional columns. Right, Senator?

With one column. But you should know what is the status. Has these all been done? What happened? It was shortage, so where did that shortage money come from? Right? I mean, we wanna know because some of this, you know, is a million dollars shortage. So I wanna know that. What is that? Fern Elementary, million dollars? Kūhiō Elementary, multipurpose building.

We'll give that update to you, Senator. Thank you.

Any other? Senator DeCorte.

Yeah. And I'm not sure what the Chair is looking at. I would also like to get a report of the CIP projects or funding that's available. Because when I had originally asked for the CIP projects in my district that are pending, that funds are gonna be lapsed, I got a report, and then I had a coach bring up some improvements on some funding for baseball field out in Nānākuli. That was not on the report that I was given.

So I had to go dig, find out where the money is. There was an increase in funds, so that project is being put to the side. So it's like the more I ask, the more I get, the more questions I have. And so unless I'm actually identifying certain projects with you folks and saying, okay. What about this project? What about the baseball field? Okay. What about this building? Then it's like I'm not getting the entire report of where the funding for CIP is just in my community.

I get a very general report, and that doesn't help me. As example, Papahana ʻo Kaiona, which the property is right now being purchased through DOE. If it wasn't for me hounding the department on where the process is at with that school and the purchase of this property. Now this school is right now being housed temporarily in a KS facility. They have to break down and set up every single day.

So if it wasn't for me hounding the department to find out where exactly this is, everybody was just waiting for the next person, but nobody was talking to each other. Right? So this is why it's so important for us to get the data that we need so we can follow-up to see where things are at. Is it at the AG's office? Is it with facilities? Where is this thing at?

And I don't know unless I start asking question. I can only imagine on a statewide level the frustration that our Chair is at having to look at all of these reports where I'm just asking for the basic stuff. And, again, I'm trusting the information you guys are giving me is accurate. And then I get asked questions, and then I find out that these projects are not on the reports you guys are giving me. So then I gotta ask for more work.

So, Senator, thank you. I just wanna clarify for my own sake that the program that you had just referenced is the ALPSS program. Correct? That's how's that? It's not it's not a school. It's the ALPSS program. And I believe facilities is engaged with the landowner in securing that parcel. But we will get you an update on where we are with that parcel. We are working with the, I believe, with the office of the Attorney General, working with the landlord to secure that.

Yeah. So what I was saying was that it was sitting on somebody's desk until I started calling around to see whose desk it was. So to be fair, in the work that I am doing, had you guys had not pursued it, it would just still be sitting there. But right now, I don't need an update because I'm already making the contacts myself.

So if I didn't step in and start pushing things and making sure it was moving forward, I gotta talk to the seller. I gotta talk to the Attorney General's office. I gotta talk to DOE. I gotta talk to all these different moving parts just to make sure that the funds are secure and we're able to get these students into their own facility. Right now, the school is maxed out. There is a desperate need for this program to this has to happen. And so I cannot rely on you guys and wait for you guys to get back to me. I gotta make the call.

Facilities has as I know, as far as I know, Senator, facilities have been working diligently on that project throughout. There are there were some challenges that related to remediation and such, I believe, that the our facilities office was going through in working with the landowner. So I do know that they're diligent in working at it. So we will get, definitely.

Well, they're diligently working at it now. To be fair, they weren't because one party is waiting for the other party, which I understand everybody has things that they're doing. But what I'm saying is is when you folks tell us we will get that to you, your word doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I gotta go pursue it. I gotta make phone calls.

I don't even know the people that I'm calling, but I'm trying to figure out what's happening with this school. That funding was appropriated, like, four years ago. So they're on it now. But to be fair, when I stepped in, nobody was moving things around. I had to go and poke through every department to see where this thing was.

And the response that I got from everybody, DOE, from the AG's office, even from the landowner, everybody was just, oh, I'm waiting for them to get back. Oh, I'm waiting for them to get back. Nobody's talking to each other. So this is why I'm saying this reporting is so is so critical. And I don't know how bad it is until I get something, And then I realize it's there's more out there. So that's why I'm saying the basic reporting is important. We don't have to go through all of this. Do you know? So thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, thank you. Okay. Moving on. Senate Bill 895. Establish new requirements for teacher led kindergarten assessments in public and charter schools. Authorizes the Department of Education to adopt rules, repeal certain requirements of the Department of Education and State Public Charter School Commission to share data with the Department of Human Services. First up again is Keith Hayashi for the DOE. Heidi?

Good afternoon, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, and Members of the Committee. Heidi Armstrong, Department of Education. We stand on our written testimony offering comments. The department does find that the current standardized kindergarten entry assessment is effective for identifying student needs across all school types.

We note that shifting back to the teacher led observational assessments would replace the consistent statewide data with varying individual evaluations, potentially complicating future efforts to measure the impact of the preschool investments. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. Hawaii State Board of Education, DOE. Roy?

The Board of Education offers comments. The board defers to the Department of Education and Executive Office for Learning regarding the current implementation and goals of the kindergarten entry assessment. The board also knows that, if the committee is open to it, it may be more appropriate to authorize the DOE to promulgate admin rules related to kindergarten assessments, as the department would continue to be responsible for implementation, but that's that's up to you.

Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Yuuko Arikawa-Cross?

Hi, Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, members of the committee. I'm Yuuko Arikawa-Cross, director of the Executive Office on Early Learning. We offer comments on SB 895 SD 1 and we defer to the Hawaii Department of Education regarding implementation and funding. EOEL respectfully request that kindergarten assessments remain uniform statewide and that EOEL retain access to the data needed to inform efforts to strengthen kindergarten readiness across Hawaii's mixed delivery early learning system.

The current KEA provides an opportunity to assess the impacts of recent statewide investments.

Including the expansion of the public pre K programs and the preschool open door subsidy. We have concerns that the proposed changes to the assessment would likely reduce the availability of consistent quantitative data needed to evaluate the the effects of these and future policy decisions. Thank you.

Thank you. With Ed Noel, for Charter School Commissions in support. Piikea Kalakau-Baarde, Teach for America in support. Not here.

Okay. Anne Weber-Yarbrough, Teach for America in support. Grace Brown, also teach for America in support. Meilan Akaka Manfre, Teach for America in support. Nako Nakolani Warrington, testifying for Kupuna for Moopuna in support.

Cheryl Burkhart, individual support. Johnny Mae Perry and Rain Kahula Young also in support. Anyone else here or on Zoom wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none, questions? Let's see.

Who should I start with? So I guess DOE, Heidi?

What is the cost for the standardized assessment?

It's It's $15 per student with a grand total of 157,000, a year. And that equates to $15 per kindergarten student.

Across the state? $15 Okay. That includes our Hawaiian emergent students or something?

No. No. That's the English medium. For the for the assessment, this first year, it's $31 per student because we had to pay for the creation of the assessment. And in the future, we won't be paying additional funding for that assessment.

We'll own it.

And then what did it cost us initially to get this software or assessment or whatever? John Hopkins. Is that where we got it from? John Hopkins?

Coming up to the podium is Dr. Lauren Padesky. She is our early childhood specialist, and she did lead this effort for us.

Aloha, Chair Kim. Thanks for your question, vice chair, committee members. The first year of the assessment was $232,312.

Okay. What was the initial purchase of software or initial was 200?

$232,300.

We were told it was a million dollars. Remember that? We're in Kaimuki. We're visiting this the your headquarters over there. It was in the summer.

We went on an education education site visit, and we were told that this software we were purchasing was going to cost a million dollars. We asked you to stop and not go forward. You said it was in the law. I said we would introduce a measure, and I did. I introduced a measure in January.

It passed out of committee, and and you continue to say that the cost was a million dollars. So where did that million dollars come from? Now you're saying it only cost 232,000.

In the first year.

It I'm asking initially to set up this whole program. What did it cost?

$232,312.

That is a little bit more. Recurring funds. We still have to pay every year, and we're we're paying $157,000 because we're utilizing their services to aggregate the data.

What was what so what has been the total spent so far?

That would be. Yeah, I can do the math. It's gonna be a little bit over 500,000 at the five year point. We are currently at year four, and that has not yet been paid out.

So two, three, four. I'm doing math out loud. Okay.

So we don't have an annual annual assessment other than the $15 per child.

The 50 we we do it is an annual assessment of $15 per child, and that would be our annual cost of 157,000.

Right, okay. But there's there's not, like, another rental agreement or whatever No. Contract agreement other than the assessment per child. No. Okay.