Gov. Josh Green has signed a suite of bills to bolster protections for students and kūpuna, highlighting one that sets up emergency alerts for missing seniors.
Senate Bill 2305 was among the 16 bills Green signed into law Monday. It created the Silver Alert Program to send out emergency alerts for missing adults aged 65 years and older.
Similar to Amber Alerts for children, the Silver Alert Program will communicate details about missing seniors to the public.
The program will also send alerts for missing people who have cognitive impairments and developmental issues.
“ If they're 65 years or older or cognitively impaired, we have an ability to signal this alert and go and save them or find that individual for our families," Green said. "It will help give law enforcement a lot of additional and immediate information."
The Silver Alert Program will be established within the state Department of Law Enforcement.
Another bill, House Bill 2224. would require the Executive Office on Aging and the State Health Planning and Development Agency to create a long-term care plan for kūpuna.
In House Bill 2430, school-age students will have more access to funds for summer meals. The bill allocates more than $2 million in state funds to the federal Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children Program, known also as the Summer EBT Program.
The program provides food money to students in low-income households during the summer months when they don’t have access to school meals. Eligible students include those who’ve received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits.
Green said the federal match to the state funding brings the total Summer EBT funding for Hawaiʻi up to around $20 million.
About 100,000 families in Hawaiʻi would be provided with meals under the program.
Two other measures highlighted during the signing ceremony aim to ensure the safety of students.
Senate Bill 2475 creates a “Harm to Students” registry for K-12 institutions in the state. The registry contains information on employees, volunteers and contractors who have been found to have harmed a student.
That includes subjecting students to “abusive acts or sexual exploitation, whether with, to, or in the presence of a student,” according to the bill.
“This measure, the first of its kind in Hawaiʻi, closes a loophole that allows predatory school personnel to move between various schools undetected,” said Sen. Michelle Kidani, who chairs the Senate Committee on Education.
“Every day, we entrust our schools with the most precious members of our families, hoping and expecting that they will be cared for and protected. Knowing that all of our keiki will benefit from these measures gives me immense peace of mind, as I'm sure it does you," she added.
The schools or institutions will conduct investigations to determine whether a person should be on the registry.
House Bill 2400 requires that teachers who retire or resign while under investigation for assaulting, harassing or abusing students give up their teaching license.
