About 200 people showed up at McKinley High School. Before the meeting even began, some students from different schools were sign-waving in support of the peer education program which would lose $932,866 in funding.

"We're trying to encourage others to make good decisions and this is a peer to peer program so the students help the students," explained Kapolei High School student Pokii Ahmad.

"Over the years, they've ranged from alcohol and drugs, marijuana, things like that but now it's more into family violence, it's into sexual identity, it's into self-esteem and peer pressure," said Barbara Nosaka, a peer educator at Ilima Intermediate.

One of the biggest proposed cuts is $2 million for science books and learning materials.

"Does this make sense for Hawaii's future? We should be adding money to science supplies, to textbooks, to teacher training that focuses on students doing hands-on experiments and research," said parent Cathy Brown.

"We know that it's tight economic times so where I said before maybe it's not a crisis yet, it's now 'We are at crisis' in relationship to what we have to do," said superintendent of education Pat Hamamoto.

The Department of Education received more than 2,200 comments on a special website in the last five days. The suggestions included closing small schools, offering early retirement to reduce payroll costs, switching to a four day work week and not cutting public education.

"I think the cuts are too deep. Do I think they need cuts? Yes, but I think the cuts are too deep," said Board of Education member Maggie Cox.

"At the end of all of this, what we want to be then is a much more focused, a much more streamlined, a much more efficient organization that continues to support teaching and learning in the classroom," Hamamoto said.

People also testified about a nearly $1.9 million reduction for student service coordinators at charter schools. DOE officials said they were simply eliminating duplicate funding in the budget.

The DOE must submit its proposal to the Department of Budget and Finance by Friday.

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