Senate Committee on Education (EDU) - chair: Jill N. Tokuda, vice chair: Michelle Kidani

Friday, March 18, 2011, 1:45 p.m. Conference Room 225

Testifier: Valere McFarland, Ph.D., Education Chair, LWV of Hawaii

Click here to view HB338, HD2

Chair Tokuda, Vice Chair Kindani, and members of the Committee: The Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of Hawai‘i opposes HB338 HD2 as written. We respectfully submit the following as input for you to consider in your decision-making process concerning setting the terms and conditions of a student voting member for the appointed Board of Education. This League feels that a public high school student representative for the Board of Education should be nominated by the state student council and that the student representative should participate fully in discussions, but should not be a voting member of the Board of Education. The League values and supports student voice in all civic forums and strongly believes that student input is valuable to the Board members in the decision-making process. However, we feel that a high school student has not had the life experiences necessary to make fiscal decisions and/or education policy decisions. We also believe that students might be subject to undue outside pressures and may not have the maturity to withstand such pressures. While we do not under-estimate the abilities of high school students, we do believe that students may be under-estimating the job of a Board of Education member. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.