Ka Wai Ola - February 2008

By Liza Simon, OHA Publications Editor

Reshela DuPuis was named executive director of the state Charter School Administrative Office in December, overseeing a system that boasts high enrollments of Native Hawaiians, who make up 96 percent of students in Hawaiian-culture focused charter schools and as high as 40 percent of other charter schools. Total enrollment statewide is around 8,000 students in 28 schools on five islands.

Along with an undergraduate degree from the University of Hawai'i and master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan, her 20 years in education and advocacy include teaching at the college level and administering programs for Kamehameha Schools, Alu Like Inc. and Good Beginnings Alliance.

Under her watch at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' Education Hale, the Board of Trustees approved a two-year $4.4 million supplemental funding initiative to support Native Hawaiian charter schools. The effort was done in cooperation with Kamehameha Schools, which decreased administrative costs and streamlined the process for charter schools. DuPuis, who was born in Indiana and grew up attending public school in Wahiawā, also had a previous life as a foodie. She sat down with KWO to discuss what's ahead for charter schools and why she compares her new job to “dancing on lava.”

KWO: Following Maunalei Love's interim term, you're stepping in as CSAO's first full-time, permanent director in 15 months. Does that pose special challenges?

RD: Coming in as Maunalei did on the heels of a director who was fired by the Board of Ed in a closed executive session meeting, it was so difficult. She healed a lot of bridges that were broken or rocky, she opened doors for the system in ways that had not been opened previously, so she really deserves a huge mahalo from all Native Hawaiians and from the charter school system.

KWO: For the new legislative session, besides funding, you said your top priorities include facilities.

RD: Almost all of the Native Hawaiian charter schools are start-ups, where facilities are a major issue. Start-up schools don't have facilities, and they've never had equitable facilities funding. We have students who are still being educated in tents, in Quonset huts, in very temporary kinds of lodgings and this means that Hawaiian students are being educated without full funding for facilities by the state because they go to a public charter school.

KWO: Do you see much external support for Hawaiian culture-focused charter schools?

RD: I think there is increasing support in the Native Hawaiian community as well in the general Hawai'i community for Native Hawaiian charter schools and for the cultural job that they're doing in perpetuating and maintaining the culture.

One of the critical things is that two of our charter schools on Kaua'i — Ke Kula Ni'ihau o Kekaha and Kula Aupuni Ni'ihau a Kahelelani Aloha — are the only two formal instruction sites for Ni'ihau dialect of Hawaiian language anywhere in the state and therefore the world. And not only are they preserving that dialect but they're teaching it to new generations.

KWO: As far as what the future holds for charter schools, what ideas do you hear that are exciting?

RD: We have heard in our office as well as at the review panel that there have been some very focused kūkākūkā on the Wai'anae Coast about making either part or all of the coast into a charter district. Now, of course, this is the coastline on O'ahu that has the highest percentage of Native Hawaiians. If that community chooses to become a charter district, what you're going to see is even more native Hawaiian activism in public education.

KWO: In your job, you work with many diverse groups: the charter schools, review panel, Board of Education, lawmakers, the governor's office, media and the public. I once heard you compare your job to doing the hula, can you elaborate?

RD: That's my metaphor for doing the job I do. 'Uwehe is a movement in hula where you bend your knees and you move your hips and step with the beat. And because my office sits at a point of contact between a lot of different groups, my job sometimes feels like I'm dancing on lava, on Pele, and she's shaking and she's rocking and rolling, and I gotta keep my knees bent and my feet light and keep that beat.

We gotta keep the dance going whether the ground cracks or shakes beneath our feet. So it's a huge hālau that I get to mālama, and I'm certainly not the kumu for that hālau. My job in some ways is to be alaka'i, to be a leader, or koa alaka'i in some ways, a warrior leader, because my job is to go out there and advocate and fight for justice for the schools. Anything that I do has to be directed by the schools themselves and by the review panel because that's who I serve and the people of Hawai'i, and I feel very strongly about that.

KWO: Your life before education was food-related. You worked for Paul Mitchell, the hair guy?

RD: I lived on his estate on Diamond Head. I had my own little house on his estate, I was his private chef for almost three years. I did all his big parties, and before working for him, I did weddings for 500 people with a seven-tiered wedding cake (laughs). When I worked for Paul Mitchell, he shaved my head. He's the one who encouraged me to go to school, so I went to the University of Hawai'i, took a couple of courses, found I loved it and decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life standing on my feet in a hot, sweaty kitchen.

RD: I'm Cherokee-Irish-French. We moved to Hawai'i from Indiana when I was 2. I went to Leilehua High School. In those days before H3, Wahiawā was country. I was a country girl. My first boyfriend was from Kamehameha though (laughs). He was president of his senior class.