Report Title:

JROTC program

Description:

Appropriates funds for JROTC programs at Kealakehe and Waiakea High Schools.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

2131

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that Congress established the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program in 1916 with the broad mandate to develop good citizenship and responsibility in young people. JROTC programs, which run through the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, are taught as elective courses at more than three thousand high schools nationwide. JROTC courses are led by active-duty and retired military personnel and teach good citizenship, personal responsibility, and service to country. Unlike college-level ROTC programs, junior ROTC programs do not obligate participating students to join the military.

A recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private, nonpartisan, policy-research institute, found that JROTC programs strengthen our youth, our communities, and our nation by nurturing individualism in the service of a common cause. JROTC programs build self-discipline, teamwork, motivation, and confidence in young people, which decreases school-related disciplinary problems for many participating students. JROTC programs do not promote militaristic anti-individualism.

While hyped-up demonstration projects and pilot programs touting youth development come and go all too regularly, the oldest and largest time-tested public enterprise for youth development is still the JROTC program.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $113,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2002-2003 for the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs at Waiakea and Kealakehe High Schools.

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of education for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2002.

INTRODUCED BY:

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