Union carpenters help Kapolei students
By James Gonser
Advertiser Leeward Bureau
KAPOLEI — Brian Ichida knew he was taking on a challenge when he agreed to become the first woodshop teacher at Kapolei High School.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
He knew he would have to set up and run the program by himself at Hawai'i's newest public school. What he didn't learn until later was that construction of the free-standing building planned for his woodshop is not expected to begin until 2003, and then only if the Legislature provides the money.
Kapolei High School woodshop teacher Brian Ichida helps ninth-grader Matthew Arnold prepare for a student project. Ichida got assistance from the Hawai'i Carpenters Union in putting up an interim workshop while waiting for a permanent structure to become available.
So Ichida converted his cramped, second-floor art room in the ninth-grade classroom building into a woodshop.
He also hatched a plan to provide a real work space for the students, which led to a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Hawai'i Carpenters Union that will give Kapolei students real-world experience and possibly a leg up in the job market after high school.
Ichida got permission to build an outdoor woodshop in a vacant parking lot behind the cafeteria as long as it didn't cost the school any money.
In March, with the help of 15 volunteers from the Hawai'i Carpenters Union, Ichida put up the wooden structure with components including two cargo containers donated by Matson Navigation Co. The containers serve as giant lockers to secure tools and student projects.
This fall he will start using the outdoor classroom and begin an entirely new program to teach his students real-world skills.
"I've been faced with challenges before as a teacher, but never before have I been asked to run a program without a facility," Ichida said. But "with the partnership with the Hawai'i Carpenters Union, we are making it happen."
Ichida, 34, began his teaching career at Nanakuli Intermediate and High School in 1993. He is a Farrington High School graduate, born and raised in Kalihi. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in education at the University of Hawai'i.
Kapolei High, which opened in July, is being built in phases, and just two of four classroom buildings have been completed.
In his executive budget this year, Gov. Ben Cayetano included $44 million to complete the school — but only $18 million was appropriated by the Legislature. The money will allow the school to build its junior classroom building, according to Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, but the athletic facility and the woodshop building must wait for at least another year.
But Ichida refused to wait and moved ahead with his program. In his "temporary" outdoor classroom, woodshop students will learn basic tool and safety skills during the first two years but will then have the option of entering an industrial crafts program with a curriculum based on the carpenter's apprenticeship program.
"If the students stay with me for three or four years, upon graduation he or she will be able to go directly into the carpenters union," Ichida said.
Industrial crafts will include laying foundations, framing walls, electricity, plumbing and roofing.
Ron Taketa, head of the Hawai'i Carpenters Union Local 745, said this is the first time the union has partnered with a school to teach students.
"It provides students with excellent career opportunities who will not necessarily go on to college but want to earn a very decent living wage and benefits for their families," Taketa said.
Taketa said the program will also have benefits for the carpenters union.
"We lose about 50 percent of our first-year apprentices," Taketa said. "People come into the carpentry business without fully understanding what they are getting into. Carpentry is hard work. If we can get a more serious carpenter apprentice in the front door — somebody who knows what he wants and has been exposed to it to some degree — then we can reduce the number we lose. It is far more economical for our training program."
Kapolei freshman Matthew Arnold said the possibility of becoming a union carpenter has helped give him direction.
"After I graduate, I hope to be in the carpenters union, but I'll have to buckle down," Arnold said. "I've already learned I'm good with my hands and I like the rewards of actually building something."
Kapolei High principal Al Naga-sako said the woodshop program fits in well with his project-based learning method of teaching and will be part of the business/technology academy at the school.
"It is important to have them do some hands-on stuff that is meaningful. Then it is not just abstract, something in a book," Nagasako said.
Ichida said that even though woodshop might be looked down on as a "cruise class," his students need to be able to work and think to pass.
"My goal as an instructor is not only to produce good carpenters, but to produce good people, to teach values and morals," Ichida said. "I can do that through carpentry because that is the grab — to influence students to make the right choices."
