Hawaii State Department of Education

From dKosopedia

Hawaii's unitary statewide school system is unique among the states. This centralization provides for equity in school funding and distribution of resources: leveling out inequalities that would exist between highly populated O‘ahu and the more rural Neighbor Islands, and between lower-income and more affluent areas of the state. The Department of Education (DOE) serves 183,000 students in 284 schools, it is approximately the 10th largest school system in the nation.

Hawaii's state Board of Education (BOE) formulates policy for the public schools and state library system. The Board has thirteen elected members (see Hawaii State Board of Education) - ten from Oahu and three from the Neighbor Islands -- and one nonvoting student member elected by students in grades 7-12.

The Board of Education hires a Superintendent of Education as the chief executive officer of the public school system, and the State Librarian.

The Superintendent appoints four Assistant Superintendents to run state-level offices responsible for curriculum, instruction, and student support; human resources; business services; and information technology services.

The Superintendent also appoints fifteen Complex Area Superintendents who each oversees and supports 2-4 school complexes. Each complex consists of a high school and the elementary and intermediate/middle schools that feed into it. The Complex Area Superintendents are based in administrative offices located in seven geographical districts: Honolulu, Central, Leeward, and Windward on Oahu; and Hawaii, Maui (including Molokai and Lanai) and Kauai (including Niihau) on the Neighbor Islands.

1 Act 51, Reinventing Education Act of 2004
2 External Links

Act 51, Reinventing Education Act of 2004

Act 51, Reinventing Education Act of 2004 was the 2004 Legislature’s answer to Governor Lingle’s attempt to decentralize the monolithic statewide Department of Education (DOE) into several individual districts as is common in the other 49 states. Act 51, a major reform of the DOE, will change the school funding formula and decentralize authority to individual school principals.

Act 51 gives principals some form of control over 70 percent of the DOE's operating budget (excluding debt servicing and capital improvement projects).

Act 51 provides for a lump-sum amount of money to go to each school based on characteristics of students (Weighted Student Formula) who attend that school. On Oct. 17, 2005, the ad hoc Committee on Weights of [Hawaii State Board of Education] settled on a compromise on the weighted funding formula that will minimize schools' gains and losses during the first year of implementation. The full BOE will consider the amended formula on October 21 after voting a prior version down last month. [1] In a blog entry dated October 18, Doug White further discusses the issues around the Weighted Student Formula. [2]

Act 51 will have Principals and their School Community Councils make decisions about staffing and programs at their own schools. Schools, therefore will allocate their resources differently, but all decisions at all schools will be judged against whether student achievement improves. This bottom-up decision making is a reversal of DOE top-down ways of the past.

The Act will have responsibility for repair and maintenance of schools transferred from the Department of Accounting and General Services to the DOE. The DOE will also be required to convene a working group to look at efficiencies in the management and operation of the schools. Certain key functions currently carried out by other state agencies will be transferred to the DOE over the course of two years.