STAND. COM. REP. NO.1522

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: H.B. No. 469

H.D. 2

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 469, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SCHOOL PERSONNEL,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to modify the requirement that principals and vice-principals must have served as a teacher for not less than five years.

In addition, this measure:

(1) Requires a principal to have at least three years of school-level experience as a teacher and at least two additional years of appropriate school-level experience which may or may not be as a teacher; and

(2) Allows the Department of Education to:

(A) Determine the appropriate school-level experience needed by a person to qualify as a vice-principal; and

(B) Waive the certification requirements and school-level experience for vice-principal candidates with appropriate administrative experience, on a case-by-case basis.

Your Committee finds that certain parts of the State are already experiencing a shortage of qualified school administrators. To alleviate this shortage, which is expected to increase over the next several years, the Department of Education is having to call former school administrators out of retirement. In addition to responding to the current shortage, this measure gives the Department of Education the flexibility to immediately recruit the best and the brightest candidates for its vice-principalships.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Requiring the Department of Education to establish through rulemaking, criteria and reasons for waiving the certification requirements and school-level experience for vice-principal candidates; and

(2) Changing the effective date of this measure to July 1, 2050, to make the measure defective in order to promote continuing discussion.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 469, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 469, H.D. 2, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair