OUR SCHOOLS • HONOWAI ELEMENTARY
Happy teachers producing results in Waipahu

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

WAIPAHU — Principal Curtis Young thinks of Honowai Elementary as the Little Engine That Could.

Honowai fourth-graders, from left, Robert Featheran, Tupe Taito and Vida Byrd work on assignments in Leonard Villanueva's class. Villanueva won the $25,000 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award last year. Photos by Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

Despite the location in the Leeward district, which has a long history of losing teachers to jobs closer to town, Honowai sees a teacher leave only every three years or so. Those are usually for retirement or out-of-state moves.

And although the students have a mix of backgrounds and literacy levels when they arrive, Honowai Elementary is a school of blossoming writers and readers.

Halfway through kindergarten, students can write book reports several paragraphs long.

At every grade level, children learn the difference between procedure, narrative, response and report writing, Young said. He said kindergarten and first-grade students read four books each day in class, and older students — and the teachers — are expected to read at least 25 books throughout the school year.

Young, who said he believes in having happy employees as a way to best serve the students, is serious about getting resources into the classroom.

"I try to follow the private industry model where you train your people on company time," principal Curtis Young said.

"We're spoiled," said Mona Shigane, standards design coach at the school.

"They're producing results," said Young. "I'll keep spoiling them."

Young's efforts led to his recent selection as Hawai'i's Nationally Distinguished Principal. He will travel to Washington, D.C., in November to be honored as the state's top principal.

Among Honowai's approximately 800 students are 100 special education students and 100 who are learning English as a second language. About 70 percent of the student body qualifies for the free- or reduced-price lunch program, a common measure of poverty.

• What are you most proud of? The school's standards. Honowai became an America's Choice School five years ago. The reform program brought training and a standard curriculum to the campus to try to improve student performance. So far, school officials are happy with the steady improvement they've seen on math and reading test scores. "The process of school improvement is no longer intimidating," Young said. "It's a natural process for us."

Honowai Elementary School has about 800 students enrolled at its campus in Waipahu. The school is led by Curtis Young, recently named Hawai'i's Nationally Distinguished Principal.

"The kids have always been the same," said Leonard Villanueva, a fourth-grade teacher who last year won the prestigious $25,000 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award, known as the Academy Award of teaching. "It's the teachers that are different."

• Best-kept secret: Honowai has an extra 15 minutes tacked to the end of its school day, which adds the equivalent of about nine instructional days per year. To compensate for that extra time, the school has 10 "in-service" days to give teachers time off from the classroom to work on professional development. And they do it all without paying for substitutes, writing extra lesson plans for the substitutes or giving students an extra 10 holidays a year.

Young said the secret is scheduling resource teachers to take over when the classroom teachers have in-service days. While a group of classroom teachers attends an in-service program or gets a day off, their students have a day filled with physical education, music, reading and other classes. "I try to follow the private industry model where you train your people on company time," Young said. If the school had to hire substitutes for those days, it would cost $150,000 a year.

The plan is popular with teachers because they say it gives them the resources and information they need. "The in-service is the most important thing," Shigane said. "You can't control the kids that are coming in. You can't control the community. You can only control what you do as a teacher."

• Everybody knows: Principal Curtis Young, who makes a habit of popping in on classrooms to a chorus of a sing-song, "Hel-lo Mr. Young," from the students. "He's always visiting the classrooms," said Lisa Zenigami-Lau, literacy coach at Honowai. "All the kids know him."

• What we need: "In terms of resources, we can do with what we have," Young said. But he would like to see more in-servicing for teachers and more teacher training. The school has sought out grant money to help supplement its budget. "We've learned we have to do much of it on our own," Young said. But teachers say that if they could add to the wish list, they would want air-conditioning the most.

• Special events: Honowai Elementary has several yearly events, including a Drug Free Schools Parade where students are joined by lawmakers and local leaders in a march though the community. Honowai also holds a field day, academic fair and talent show to showcase the students' academic work and talents.