Bill Text: HI SCR158 | 2016 | Regular Session | Introduced

Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 158 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Department of Education; Public Schools; Report

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-03-16 - Referred to EDU, WAM. [SCR158 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2016-SCR158-Introduced.html

THE SENATE	S.C.R. NO.	158
TWENTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE, 2016
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

requesting the department of education to provide the legislature with a comprehensive report on public school funding.

WHEREAS, the Hawaii Department of Education school district is the only statewide school district in the United States; and

WHEREAS, according to a Ballotpedia analysis of the largest school districts within the United States, Hawaii has the lowest expenditures per student when including a cost of living adjustment; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii has the highest per capita private school enrollment in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii's major private schools spend approximately $15,173 per student, not including endowments, and approximately $19,173 per student when Catholic schools, subsidized by the Roman Catholic Diocese, are not included; and

WHEREAS, the Hawaii Department of Education school district spends $11,823 per student for general and special education students, but approximately half as much as private schools when only general education students are taken into account; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii ranks last in capital improvement funding per student, spending approximately $300 per student on capital improvements compared to an average of $1,200 to $1,500 on the mainland; and

WHEREAS, according to a WalletHub.com study, Hawaii ranked fifty-first out of fifty states and the District of Colombia in starting and median teacher salaries when including a cost of living adjustment; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the nation, losing approximately fifty percent of the State's teaching force every five years; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii's public school campuses are on average, over sixty-five years old and contain nearly seven thousand classrooms that lack air conditioning or other heat abatement technology, despite classroom temperatures that regularly exceed ninety degrees during the school year; and

WHEREAS, increasing funding for public education will upgrade school infrastructure, help to recruit and retain effective teachers, and increase student achievement; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-eighth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2016, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Education is requested to provide the Legislature with a comprehensive report on public school funding; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Education evaluate methods of improving funding for public education and include the following in the report:

(1) A district-to-district comparison of per-student spending, including capital improvement projects, in the Hawaii Department of Education school district and mainland school districts with similar sizes and costs of living;

(2) A district-to-district comparison of teacher salaries in the Hawaii Department of Education school district and mainland school districts with similar sizes and costs of living;

(3) Recommendations to the weighted student formula to promote fiscal equity throughout the Department of Education, including the use of categorical allotments for rural schools and increased funding for special education;

(4) Progress in providing air conditioning to all public school classrooms, including the amount of funding needed to provide air conditioning or other heat abatement strategies to all classrooms;

(5) Budgetary projections to reduce class size for public elementary, intermediate, middle, and high schools to no more than twenty students for any elementary school class and no more than twenty-six students for any intermediate, middle, or high school class, except band, orchestra, choir, or theatre;

(6) Funds necessary to staff all appropriate public schools with a librarian, technology coordinator, vice principal, counselor, and special education transition coordinator;

(7) Funds necessary to increase arts and Native Hawaiian educational programming throughout the Department;

(8) Funds necessary to expand vocational, technical, and career pathway programming to at least one high school in every school complex area, including cost estimates for any necessary personnel;

(9) Funds needed to align teacher salary steps with years of service, including the number of teachers whose salary steps are not aligned with years of service and budgetary projections for providing annual step increases to all teachers beginning with the 2017-2018 school year; and

(10) Information on strategies for minimizing administrative costs and departmental overhead expenses; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Education is requested to submit the report, including any proposed legislation, to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2017; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Chairperson of the Board of Education, and Superintendent of Education.