Kane'ohe parents form 'home school'

By Alice Keesing and Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writers

The shouts of children swinging and sliding on a playground at Kane'ohe's Yacht Club Terrace drifted up to a nearby lanai this week where 8-year-old Noelani Derrickson buried her head in her hands and studied a long division problem.

'Aikahi Elementary School students, seated left to right, Jennifer Kuleci,8; Noelani Derrickson, 8; Briana Pratt, 9; and Elyse Jambeau, 9, answer a question by Joda Derrickson, standing, on Derrickson's lanai in Kane'ohe. Derrickson and neighbors have banded together to give their children academic lessons during the teacher strike. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Their parents have responded to the teachers' strike, which is heading into its second week, by banding together and creating a "home school" for their children, who all live in the same block of townhouses on Kane'ohe Bay Drive.

"They need to understand school goes on, the learning goes on, this is not vacation," said parent Jocelyn Pratt. "We don't want them to fall behind, and what if (the strike) did go on for three weeks, a month?"

The parents of the five families sat down on Sunday and worked out a schedule where each takes time off work to care for and teach the children.

Most days the six out-of-school students met at the Derricksons' house, where a handwritten schedule is posted in the hallway:

7:30 a.m.: Drop-off. Pledge.
8-9 a.m.: Support teachers.
9-9:30 a.m.: Break and AM snack.
9:30-11 a.m.: School time.

"I've been watching on the news and a lot of kids are just hanging around," said 9-year-old Elyse Jambeau, as she worked on her cursive writing. "It's important to keep your education up because if (the strike) lasts more than 20 days then we'll have to be working in summer."

It's not all book work, though; there's still time for play in the pool or at Kailua Beach.

"That's really nice that they're doing that at home. It keeps them in the routine of studying," said 'Aikahi Elementary third-grade teacher Lynne Johnson, who teaches two of the students.

"If the strike goes on longer than two weeks it's going to be really rough to get them back into focus," Johnson said. "And I think the difference this time is that the parents are extremely stressed; it's not a happy time, it's not a planned time for them."

However, Johnson said many of her students are dropping by the picket line to tell her they're keeping up with their reading, or getting research books from the library for their next project, or visiting the Capitol to learn about the political system that underpins the strike that is keeping them out of school.

But educators suspect the 'Aikahi students are in the minority.

"I think, especially so close to spring recess, most students are probably considering it an extension of spring break," said Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen.

That raises concerns about lost momentum and learning for the rest of the school year. If the strike lasts until Monday, it will mean the cancellation of this year's standardized testing, which would have served as the baseline for the department's systemwide standards reform movement. Graduation for seniors is up in the air if the strike reaches 20 days.

"I think basically what we're hoping for is that they just maintain some learning activity, even if it's just reading," Knudsen said. For parents wondering what to do with their children, he said, the department has posted links to instructional activities on its Web page at doe.k12.hi.us/strike.

At the University of Hawai'i, where many students have just one class or lab section still operating through the strike, the amount of work students have been able to do — or have taken upon themselves to do — without professors around has varied widely. The spectacle of faculty members marching in circles to block campus entrances has also been a distraction for students living on campus.

Jamie Henneman holds a front-row seat to the strike at Manoa, where from her rumpled, unmade bed in a third-floor room at Johnson Hall she can hear everything happening on the picket line at East-West Road. She knows the chants, the schedules, the songs by heart. She knows what the pickets eat for lunch. She wakes up to horns honking every day at 6 a.m. as people drive down Dole Street.

"The guy with the bullhorn, he's got to go," Henneman said. "He should go down to the Capitol and irritate the people who matter."

Henneman, 21, is going home to Maui this weekend to wait out the faculty strike in peace.

She has tried to keep up with the reading for her classes, but with a barrage of horn honking, bullhorn shouting and only one Spanish class continuing through the strike, she said it's difficult to concentrate.

"I tried," she said. "I couldn't even read. I'm trying to keep up with my reading. I know when we go back they'll expect us to have done it."

Renee DeCurtis, 18, who also lives in Johnson Hall, has another suggestion.

"We were going to make a sign that said, 'Don't Honk, We're Sleeping," she said.

Henneman's roommate, Audra Lincoln, a sophomore majoring in Japanese, said she doesn't mind all of the noise because she supports faculty members and will not cross the picket line to go onto campus.

"I don't know if I have class," she said. "I'm not going. I've been trying to keep up as much as I can, but when you don't have any contact with the professors, it's hard."

Aaron Delbex-Smith, a sports medicine major from Hilo, admits he has spent a big portion of time just hanging out. "It's hard because there's not a lot of motivation," he said.

Students are unsure what the strike has done to alter due dates for papers, presentations or scheduled tests and quizzes, Delbex-Smith said. Many deadlines for their classes have come and gone in the past week.

Mason Nakadomari, a senior majoring in computer science, has one class taught by a teaching assistant continuing through the strike. "I just read the book and work on my programs," he said. "It's not the same, but we generally know what we're trying to do. You just play it by ear."