HONOLULU -- The Hawaii public school system spent more than $1 million to send 651 educators to a training conference in Orlando, Fla., in June.

The Department of Education defended the expense as important training needed to improve public schools.

The governor wants to know exactly how much money was spent on this training conference, particularly in light of budget cuts that will affect public school programs. Read Gov. Lingle's letter to BOE member Donna Ikeda

The DOE sent the hundreds of teachers, vice principals and principals to the four-day Model Schools Conference at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in June.

"The goal is how to learn from your peers and how to improve student achievement," Assistant Superintendent Daniel Hamada said.

The DOE said 651 of its employees from 177 schools statewide attended the conference, costing taxpayers roughly $1.2 million.

Gov. Linda Lingle wrote a letter to the Board of Education, saying "given the serious fiscal limits the state is facing, and the Board's pending deliberations to cut basic programs such as junior varsity sports, I would appreciate knowing how much the Department of Education expended in total for all participants to this conference."

"I absolutely do believe that it was critical that our people went, but of course, given the fiscal situations, of course we're going to make cuts just like very other department," Honolulu District Superintendent Ronn Nozoe said.

State Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said 81 percent of the public schools students statewide will benefit from the conference. She said it is a good investment, "When you think about $1 million over 177 schools, and the numbers of people that did go and the kinds of practices they will bring back to implement."

Individual school administrators made decisions about attending the Orlando conference long before budget cuts came down earlier this summer, DOE officials said.

"The schools had to plan about over a year ago, and last December in terms of how they are going to best use their funds. And that being said, we need to honor what the schools decided," Hamada said.

The DOE on Thursday e-mailed all of the 177 schools that sent staff to the Florida conference, asking for an accounting of exactly how much tax money they spent there. Some schools could have used a mix of local and federal funds for the conference.

The Board of Education is meeting in Waipahu on Thursday night to discuss the proposed $1 million cut to public school's athletic programs.

The Hawaii High School Athletics Association has said a budget cut of that magnitude would likely force the elimination of junior varsity programs and possibly some varsity sports.

The cuts are part of $9.2 million in budget cuts mandated by the Lingle administration.

University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin, high school athletic directors and coaches are scheduled to testify at the BOE meeting at Waipahu High School's cafeteria.