Committee releases
special ed critique

The panel says the Felix
decree opens a 'Pandora's box'

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Associated Press

The special legislative committee investigating the rapidly rising cost of special education programs in Hawaii released a final report yesterday that differs little from its draft report released Dec. 5.

The final report from the Joint Senate-House Investigative Committee was transmitted to legislative leaders with a recom- mendation that the committee be kept alive beyond its scheduled expiration on Jan. 16, the opening day of the 2002 legislative session. The report is available to the public on the Legislature's Web site.

The key finding was that the federal court's Felix consent decree, despite good intentions to improve special education and health services for Hawaii children with mental disabilities, "has also unleashed a Pandora's box of unintended consequences."

It blamed unclear requirements for compliance, the extraordinary powers granted certain administrators without any apparent oversight and the court's blocking the committee's access to information to fully understand the Felix programs and their funding.

Included in the final report were eight responses from those whose actions were the subject of the committee's investigation, including former state Schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu and Kaniu Kinimaka-Stocksdale, whose company was a subcontractor that received work from the Department of Education.

LeMahieu resigned after admitting he and Kinimaka-Stocksdale had an affair, but insisted that their personal relationship developed after the contract had been awarded.

The 1994 consent decree was the result of a federal lawsuit filed in 1993 as a class action by special-needs student Jennifer Felix and six other children.