Photo: Nelson Gaspar

On the first day back from winter break, 12 students of Hālau Kū Māna charter school wasted no time in getting their hands dirty. At a lo'i in Mānoa Valley, they cleared weeds, checked out the condition of the kalo, and when it was their turn for an outdoor science lecture, they gathered in small groups around one of their three kumu, Līloa Dunn, an ethnobotanist at Lyon Arboretum. The day's topic: genetic engineering.

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“What exactly is combined in genetic engineering?” Dunn asked the students, who found seats on the grass or a large rock.

“Plants,” a student answered.

“What part of the plant?”

“DNA,” the answer came.

“Exactly,” the kumu said.

Among the state's 14 Hawaiian-culture focused or immersion charter schools, Hālau Kū Māna melds a conventional curriculum with hands-on outdoor learning, Hawaiian language, culture and values like mālama 'āina and aloha 'āina to foster learners who think about the community as well as academics. Besides having a campus in Makiki, students spend time in the lo'i, at He'eia fishpond, or aboard Kanehunamoku, the school's double-hulled canoe.

“I like it because I see it as I get the best of both worlds,” said 14-year-old freshman Anthony “Kekoa” Lynch, as he worked in the lo'i. “I get the education that we need and the education that I want. I enjoy hula and 'ōlelo, but being that we need math and language arts and reading skills, we get that too.”

Native Hawaiians make up about 96 percent of enrollees at Hawaiian-culture focused charter schools, and up to 40 percent at other charter schools. “There is no charter school in the entire system that doesn't have Native Hawaiian students,” said Reshela DuPuis, the new executive director of the state Charter School Administrative Office. Some of the strengths of the Hawaiian-focused schools are teaching subjects like the environment and values like mālama 'āina, she said.

A Hālau Ku Mana student is hard at work deep in Mānoa Valley. - Photo: Blaine Fergerstrom

“Hawaiians took empirical observational science, they took care of their environment in extremely profound and important ways, and our students are learning the wisdom of that way as well as coming to understand the western scientific model,” she said. “They are just as comfortable working within the Hawaiian traditional science and turning around and entering their data on a computer.”

Charter schools are public schools within the state Department of Education that have more autonomy in curriculum and other matters than mainstream schools and face the same standards as any Hawai'i public school, including the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which can impose restructuring if a school doesn't meet Annual Yearly Progress, or AYP.

In northern Hawai'i Island, Kū Kahakalau, principal of Kanu o ka 'Āina charter school, was among the state's charter school pioneers who brought Hawaiian language, culture and values into a western model around 2001. She has two school-age daughters and calls herself “the proudest public school parent.”

Ka Waihona o Ka Na'auao. - Photo: Courtesy of Ka Waihona o Ka Na'auao

“We have shown it can work for the kids, not just on an academic level, which is crucial, but also on a cultural and Hawaiian language level,” she added.

In addition to meeting AYP for two years in a row, Kanu o Ka 'Āina is going through accreditation, “which is a very exciting process and speaks to our ongoing growth,” she said. But she's also proud that her students chant, dance hula, volunteer in the community, can discuss issues like genetically modified kalo, and on top of that know their culture better than she did growing up.

Like many charter schools, Kanu has struggled with substandard facilities — its enrollment hasn't budged much from its original 150 because it couldn't afford bigger, better facilities. The school uses shipping containers housing a library, cafeteria and teachers' lounge. But now, she said, Kanu's nonprofit, Kanu o ka 'Āina Learning 'Ohana, is constructing — not a school, but a “learning center for the entire 'ohana,” in which the school will rent space.

The first building, a $3.9-million multimedia resource center, is already under construction, financed largely by a U.S. Agriculture Department construction loan, a U.S. Department of Education Native Hawaiian Education grant and funding from Kamehameha Schools. Future plans include a $4 million early childhood complex.

“Bottom line is this is going to be a $25 million-easy total figure once we're finished because we have to get away from looking at any of this as a school. We're talking about Hawaiian communities — empowerment, sustainability and designing and controlling our own models of education. In that way it's self-determination and education.”

Kahakalau, a public school teacher since 1985, said she doesn't doubt that mainstream teachers care, but they're hindered by a system that is too big and impersonal, and the students suffer. “I know plenty of my colleagues then and now that do care for the kids, she said, adding, “The difference between coming to our Native Hawaiian charter schools and public DOE, is the students feel this is the first place they experienced in their career that somebody cares.”

That's part of the reason Nani White of Ka Waihona o ka Na'auao drives from her home in 'Āina Haina to Nānākuli every day, where she teaches science and her husband, Paul, also teaches. The teacher-student ratio at Ka Waihona is around 1:22 compared to 1:33 at her previous mainstream school, Kapolei Middle. “There is a little more attention to the students' needs,” she said. “I find that they've become more involved because of that.”

Ka Waihona, which succeeds in a district that struggles with educational success, is considered a stellar example of the potential of a Hawaiian-culture focused charter school. Since opening its doors for 58 students in a renovated chicken coop, the school now occupies the former Nanaikapono Elementary campus, where its enrollment is 499 in grades K-8. About 400 more are on the waiting list.

“I want you to know, that even though we have a cultural component, essentially we started off as an academically rigorous school,” said Ka Waihona principal Alvin Parker, chairman of the newly created Charter School Review Panel, which authorizes new charters. “In other words, academic rigor was important for us to implement as a cornerstone of our curriculum. … It was not until this year that our Hawaiian language component entered the curriculum.”

While other charter schools have struggled with a per-pupil funding below what mainstream schools receive, Ka Waihona has overcome that hurdle. “The magic number is 200 students,” Parker said, “that's where you can be financially strong and sustain your programs.”

“We have 500 students and our financial stability is very, very good.” The school just re-roofed its cafeteria, and plans to have P.E. facilities built and shipped from Oregon. In a year, the school receives about $8,000 per pupil, plus more than $1 million in combined grants through the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Kamehameha Schools, as well as substantial Title I funding, the nation's free and reduced lunch program.

At Ka Waihona, success is measured in various ways: eight tenured DOE teachers transferred to the school last year, nine students were accepted into Kamehameha Schools, more than 90 percent of its faculty has master's degrees in education, 90 percent of its teachers are licensed (compared to 60 percent in mainstream schools) and it has passed AYP three of the last four years. Parker said he also measures success in another way, “It's about the fact that we are Hawaiian people in a Hawaiian community doing something they said couldn't be done.”