What Hawaii Senate Will Ask Ed Board Nominees
A new day for accountability in Hawaii schools begins as early as this week, when Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie‘s nine nominees to the state’s first appointed Board of Education in 45 years head into their confirmation hearings.
From 1966 to 2010, board members were elected by majority vote — the only qualifications for candidacy being that they live in the appropriate geographic area and receive a handful of signatures to get on the ballot. Voters passed an amendment in November 2010 to replace the elected board with one appointed by the governor. A bill outlining the selection process was signed into law March 14, and Abercrombie announced his nominations on March 30. His appointees are subject to confirmation by the state Senate.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Jill Tokuda shared with Civil Beat some of the topics that she and her committee will likely cover with the nominees in hearings this Wednesday and Friday. They run the gamut from the role and responsibility of board members, to individual long-term goals, to hot education topics like budget cuts and school closure.
Tokuda gave each of the nominees a questionnaire of her when Abercrombie announced his appointments last Wednesday. Those questionnaires will be published with the public testimony from the hearings. She said she did not see the nominees’ applications to the governor.
“The questionnaires dealt with the role and responsibility of board members, especially in relation to the Department of Education, and given the new process they’re going through,” Tokuda said.
The form also asked the nominees how their skill sets and life experiences would serve as assets in establishing and defining the new board’s role.
“I will be talking with each individual about what they perceive their role to be as one of the initial nine,” Tokuda said. “It really is a new day for the board, and while we’ve had a (Board of Education) for decades, this new board is going in a different direction, and we will be talking about their strengths and skills that will facilitiate this new Board of Education.”
The confirmation hearings will be almost identical to confirmation hearings held for the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, Tokuda said, except that nominees who will represent the neighbor islands on the board will also be expected to discuss their knowledge of and connection with those communities.
All Education Committee members will have their own questions to ask, and other senators are invited to sit in on the hearings and participate in questioning as well, she said.
The hearings are scheduled to begin at 1:15 p.m. on both Wednesday and Friday in Room 225 at the Hawaii State Capitol.
