OUR SCHOOLS • WAILUPE VALLEY ELEMENTARY
Tiny campus gets big support from its 'ohana
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
'AINA HAINA — With just two classroom buildings and a library at Wailupe Valley Elementary School, it's impossible to get lost or to be just another face in the crowd.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
But while small means everyone knows one another's name, it also means that space is at a premium on the six-acre campus at the end of 'Aina Haina Valley.
Principal Judy Toguchi and fifth-grade teacher Dennis Imoto helped the students at Wailupe Valley Elementary School make a World Trade Center memorial poster that the children signed. The school opened in 1958 with 205 students; today its enrollment is 200.
The library is "intimate," lunch is served out of a converted classroom and students walk with their lunch plates to another converted series of classrooms to eat.
Outside, two of the school's six acres are hillside and considered unusable. That leaves only postage stamp-size playgrounds and a basketball court for students to play on.
It's that space issue that makes school a bit of a challenge, said principal Judy Toguchi.
"We don't have a place for assemblies," she said. "We've thought about converting the basketball courts into an assembly hall, but, well, we make do."
The school has always been small. When it opened in 1958, there were 205 students and nine teachers in kindergarten to third grade. The school grew, to about 405 students in the 1961-62 school year, but on average, the student body has stayed at about 200, Toguchi said. Over the years, the state Department of Education has tried to close the school because of its size, but the parents group rallied support from the community and was able to keep it open.
"We have good family and parent support here," Toguchi said. "When we need help from the parents, they're there, ready to help. Small schools are rare."
• What are you most proud of? The students, staff and volunteers, Toguchi said. Everyone looks out for one another and there's such a feeling of 'ohana.
• Best-kept secret: That Wailupe Valley is a small school.
• Everybody at our school knows: "We all know Mr. Al Shidaki and his sister, Charlene Shidaki, who have been the custodians 15 years. The kids go to them when their balls get stuck on the roof or when they need help."
• Our biggest challenge: "Finding enough financial and physical resources to provide our kids with the best education possible."
• What we need: A larger playground, one where the students can run around.
• Projects: Getting a bridge built over Kulu'i Stream to connect the school to an adjacent city park so students can use the park. Presently, students cannot use the park because the walk to get there is not on school property, and that would require daily permission slips from parents. Two years ago, the community vision team stood up for the school and supported a project that involves building a pedestrian bridge linking the school's campus to the park. The project is awaiting approval of the necessary documents between the city and state.
• Special events: Fun Day; the annual JPO camp-out in tents on campus; Application Period, a time where students get to choose an elective class — French, cooking, broadcast journalism, art, gardening or science — and attend that class once a week for six weeks. And the monthly Ha'aheo Award, where a teacher selects a student each month who has practiced the five R's — respect, resourcefulness, responsiveness, resilience and responsibility.
To get your school profiled, contact education editor Dan Woods at 525-5441 or dwoods@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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| At a glance
• Where: 939 Hind Iuka Drive, 'Aina Haina • Phone: 377-2414 • Principal: Judy Toguchi, for two years • School nickname: Stingrays • School colors: Green and white • Enrollment: 200 students, with room for 250 • SATs: Here's how Wailupe Valley Elementary students fared on the most recent Stanford Achievement Test. Listed is the combined percentage of students scoring average and above average, compared with the national combined average of 77 percent. Third grade, reading: 88 percent; math: 92 percent. Fifth grade, reading: 96 percent; math: 93 percent. • History: The school opened in 1958 and is named after the Hawaiian words wai, which means water, and lupe, which means kite. The school's kupuna say the Hawaiians were great kite makers and probably used the valley for the sport. • Special features: Two teachers, Tammy Doan and Dennis Imoto, have been trained in the Future Flight program, which specializes in astronomy and science. On Nov. 1, a NASA Ames Research Center instructor will visit the school and bring a space shuttle suit to show students. • Special programs or classes: The entire sixth-grade class participates in the annual May Day program, with each girl representing a Hawaiian island. Other programs include Lion's Quest, a character education program; recycling programs; and a rewards program for being responsible, respectful, responsive, resilient and resourceful. • Computers: Seventeen new Apple computers and three PCs, some of which were recently purchased by the school's 'Ohana group, the result of seven years of fund raising. |
