Posted on: Friday, January 25, 2002
Schools likely to suffer larger financial hit
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
Public school budget cuts may soon begin to hit Hawai'i classrooms, the state schools superintendent told the Board of Education last night.
Pat Hamamoto said the Department of Education, which expects to lose $7.1 million this year, could take a financial blow next year of up to $35 million.
"All of our programs would begin to look different," Hamamoto said. "This is a big hit."
Hamamoto said the cuts could affect everything from art supplies to science education.
"They have to do a dry science lab instead a real science lab," she said. "They may not get to go on a field trip."
There may also be less money for classroom supplies, meaning teachers would spend more out of their own pockets.
"Teachers are wonderful people," Hamamoto said. "They end up spending a lot of their own paycheck on the classroom."
Gov. Ben Cayetano has asked the Legislature for $255 million in school repair and maintenance spending, but said he can no longer protect schools from the budget cuts all state departments are facing: 1 percent this year and 2 percent next year. For the DOE, that translates to $7.1 million in 2001-02 and $14 million in 2002-03.
But Hamamoto said the Legislature has asked her to also prepare for budget cuts of 3, 4 or even 5 percent in 2002-03, or up to a $35 million loss.
Board chairman Herbert Watanabe said, "We hope it doesn't get past 2 percent. We haven't even considered 3. It scares me."
Hamamoto said the department's top priorities are meeting health and safety needs and complying with the federal Felix consent decree, which mandates that the state improve special education.
The department is trimming new programs before they're even begun. Hamamoto said she does not want to interrupt existing programs in the middle of the school year. For example, the DOE will pull $550,000 from a school-to-work program that was supposed to have started at five high schools.
Hamamoto outlined for the board areas the DOE recommends cutting in 2002-03, including:
• $3.6 million for computer education
• $845,000 for summer school
• $660,000 for instructional materials
• $3.3 million for the A-Plus after-school
• $35,000 for personnel recruitment
• $69,000 for training for Hawai'i content and performance standards
Also yesterday, the DOE announced a plan to put into action a controversial anti-harassment rule.
The plan could represent an end to the agonized battle between gay rights advocates and opponents of the anti-harassment rule, which is designed in large part to protect gay students.
It comes more than a year after board members adopted the rule.
The plan:
• Requires anti-harassment training for all students, DOE employees and board members by Oct. 31.
• Holds school administrators and staff accountable for informing all students and parents that harassment will not be tolerated and outlining expected behaviors for all students by Sept. 1 of each school year.
• Requires the DOE to communicate to all school staff members that the mandate to consistently enforce Chapter 19 still stands.
• Requires school administrators to monitor Chapter 19 incident reports relating to harassment each quarter.
• Puts school complex area superintendents in charge of dealing with campuses that are having problems with student discipline or incidents. They also will monitor Chapter 19 incidents.
• Requires anti-harassment training for all new employees.
The board in November 2000 found itself immersed in an intense debate over sexual orientation when it rewrote its so-called Chapter 19 rule to bar students from harassing others because of gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, among other things.
Since then, the board has continued to hear testimony about the lack of enforcement of Chapter 19 and the perception that the schools would endorse homosexuality by teaching tolerance of gay students.
Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
