Haha'ione Elementary may alter schedule
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — Haha'ione Elementary School is considering changing its semester schedule.
Principal Carolyn Nakamoto sent out surveys to the school's parents in December, asking them to choose from three proposed modified school-year schedules.
Haha'ione is now on a school calendar that calls for one week off in the fall, two weeks off in the winter and two weeks off in the spring.
The school's teachers have already voted for a plan that calls for one week off in the fall, three weeks off in December and two weeks off in spring, Nakamoto said. The other option at Haha'ione is: one week off in the fall, two weeks off in the winter and one week off in the spring.
The plans have different start dates for the beginning of the school year. The other schools in the Kaiser complex — Kamiloiki and Koko Head elementary schools and Niu Valley Intermediate — are now on the same schedule as Haha'ione.
Kaiser High School — which has six weeks off in the summer — is the only school in the complex that isn't on a modified year-round schedule. The high school recently looked into changing, but administrators and members of the School Community Based Management organization decided to maintain the present calendar.
Nakamoto hopes to have the surveys evaluated by early February. So far parents seem to favor staying on the present schedule.
"These are all the same schedules for the most part," she said, "except for a few days that are off because of the bargaining-unit days. "
A parent of a kindergartener and a fourth-grader, Seagem Fix, said she will support whatever the teachers choose. "I don't have other children in public schools, so I'll go with whatever the teachers want," Fix said. "I'm fine with the schedule."
Said Nakamoto: "The more survey results we get, the better — because then we can get a truer picture of what the parents want."
More than 50 percent of all the 254 schools statewide are on some kind of year-round schedule, said Greg Knudsen, state Department of Education spokesman. Some schools start as early as the fourth week of July and others as late as Aug. 23. Student services such as buses, food service and summer schools are juggled around the diverse schedules, Knudsen said.
"We've always encouraged the districts to coordinate the schedules," Knudsen said. "There are 20 or 30 different calendars out there. Many of them are similar."
Several years ago, many schools switched to year-round schedules as a way to minimize the amount of time needed for review. Studies found that students on the traditional six-week break needed three worth of review to get back in the groove of learning, Nakamoto said.
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
