The Senate Education Committee approved a bill Friday that would carve out an exemption from the state Ethics Code for teachers who chaperone student trips, despite warnings from ethics staff that it was a step down a slippery slope.

The proposal, Senate Bill 2425, had the strong backing of teachers, who filled the room and testified to the benefits of educational travel and how hard they work to give public school children a chance to broaden their horizons.

“Teachers get excited about bringing their students on these trips — not because they see it as a ‘free’ trip — but because they are happy to see their students getting an experience that they will not be able to provide them in the classroom,” Jodi Kunimitsu, a Maui High School teacher, said in written testimony. “It really is a 24-hour job to be a chaperone for students who go on these trips.”

The bill comes in response to an Ethics Commission opinion last year advising against the long-standing practice of teachers organizing and promoting student trips in conjunction with travel agencies, then traveling free as chaperones. The commission said such arrangements put teachers in a conflict of interest and violate the gifts law.

Ethics staff say they support educational trips and appreciate the work that teachers put in on their own time. They said teachers could continue to travel free if administrators handled the arrangements with the tour companies or if teachers used an approved list of vendors. They advised against altering the Ethics Code.

“I would suggest that in creating exceptions to the state Ethics Code, it should be done sparingly and very thoughtfully,” Ethics Commission Executive Director Les Kondo said. “Once we have an exception, it starts to erode the statute and it’s hard to undo.

“It is unnecessary to change the state Ethics Code so that teachers may accept free travel from tour companies.”

The Department of Education, however, supported the bill. Deputy Superintendent Stephen Schatz said he didn’t consider the chance to chaperone a “gift” to teachers.

“I think there is more risk in not having an exception than there is in having one,” Schatz said. “We think there is a problem to be solved here, and we think the legislation is the vehicle through which we would do that.”

Schatz said it would be unworkable for administrators to take on the task of arranging individual trips, because teachers are the ones most versed in the educational component of such travel.

Legislators have expressed frustration at what they see as overzealous interpretation of the ethics law by the commission. Education Committee Chairwoman Michelle Kidani grilled Kondo at the meeting and suggested he was “picking on the teachers.”

“I don’t believe that teachers who are willing to take children on educational trips should have to be penalized and make them pay for these trips,” Kidani (D, Mililani-Waikele-Kunia) said.

A similar bill in the House (HB 1713) that would allow teachers and other state employees to accept free travel, under certain conditions, has been amended to alter the Ethics Code itself. It would repeal the first sentence of the code, which says, “This chapter shall be liberally construed to promote high standards of ethical conduct in state government.”

In an effort to resolve the teacher travel issue, the Board of Education has adopted a policy that differentiated between school-sponsored and private trips. School-sponsored trips include academic and athletic competitions, band festivals and robotics tournaments, and trips related to curriculum that are open to an entire class or grade level.

The state procurement code applies in choosing tour companies for school-sponsored trips, and chaperone travel can be covered with state funds or group fundraising.

The Education Committee also passed Senate Bill 3104 on Friday to put $405,000 into the Department of Education’s student travel program to help cover the cost of such chaperone travel.

Under the BOE policy, trips that are voluntary and extracurricular are considered private and must be organized outside of school.