Big Island residents have several opportunities this month to suggest ways to improve Hawaii’s education system.
Tonight, education officials will be in Waimea to collect feedback about the state Department of Education and Board of Education’s Joint Strategic Plan.
The meeting is from 5-6:30 p.m. in the ‘Olu‘olu Room of the Halau Ho‘olako Building, 65-1043 Hiiaka St. The event is free and open to the public. Hawaii County-based board members Brian De Lima and Patricia Bergin will be in attendance, along with state Superintendent of Education Kathryn Matayoshi.
The multiyear strategic plan outlines goals to help Hawaii students better succeed. The plan was last updated in 2012. It’s now under review for 2017-20.
Education leaders say the 2012 updates led to strides — for example, chronic absenteeism statewide has dropped and college enrollment increased. But graduation rates are at a standstill and “too few of our students with high needs are achieving at high levels,” according to the DOE’s website.
Officials will use tonight’s input to draft revisions and hope to present a final plan to the BOE in December. That plan will be used during next year’s budget process and guide future board policies, according to the DOE’s website. It also will be used as the state implements the Every Student Succeeds Act, a new federal education law replacing No Child Left Behind.
Isle residents will have two other chances to offer feedback — tonight in Kona and later this month in Hilo. Members of Gov. David Ige’s “ESSA team” — comprised of mostly education leaders from Oahu — will be on the island for two town hall-style meetings about the new ESSA law.
The free, public meeting is from 4:30-6:30 p.m. today at Kealakehe High School. The Hilo meeting is slated for 4:30-6:30 p.m. Aug. 24 at Waiakea High School. Both are Neighbor Island follow-ups to Ige’s 2016 Hawaii Education Summit on Oahu last month, where the new law and governor’s ongoing “blueprint for transforming education in Hawaii” were discussed, according to ESSA team chairman Darrel Galera.
ESSA, signed in December, makes a number of changes to the national education system. For example, it requires states to identify and intervene in their bottom 5 percent of performing schools, or in high schools with graduation rates below 67 percent.
The DOE plans to submit the state’s ESSA plan for funding by next March. The new law must be fully implemented for the 2017-18 school year.
On Tuesday, the governor, Matayoshi and state education leaders sent a joint letter voicing concerns about the law’s draft regulations and implementation timeline. The letter was part of a public comment period for proposed federal regulations, according to a DOE news release.
Regulations “appear to be more prescriptive than the spirit of the law,” Matayoshi said in the release. “ESSA was initially returning more control to the states. … In the letter, we shared our concerns over proposed regulations, which are overly restrictive and harken back to No Child Left Behind’s one-size-fits-all approach.”
Ige is using the new ESSA law as an opportunity to make larger changes to Hawaii’s education system, Galera said.
“The law provides an opportunity for states to have much greater flexibility,” he said. “Gov. Ige took it to another level. He said, ‘Not only are we going to look at these opportunities but we’re going to go beyond that.’ The federal plans say what you have to do for the next year, the governor’s vision is looking much further than that — where we need to be in 20 years.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
