Times are hard for Kamaile kids
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
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Kamaile Elementary School made news last month when teen pro golfing sensation Michelle Wie — touched by stories about the school's tent-dwelling students featured in The Advertiser series about the homeless crisis on the Wai'anae Coast — donated tens of thousands of dollars to refurbish, air-condition and re-equip the school's computer lab.
Wie did it, she said, to raise awareness about the plight of homeless kids.
In spite of that good fortune and its surrounding publicity — which generated additional sympathy, interest and donations — Kamaile is a school that understands it has its work cut out. No school on the Wai'anae Coast has been more affected by poverty and homelessness, officials say.
"We only see the poverty and homelessness on the beach," said principal Glen Kila. He said some of his students live in beach tents as well as makeshift dwellings in the hills and out in the bushes. "What we don't see is the poverty in our homes. And there's the problem of the hidden homeless — children who come to school from multiple families living in a single household. I would say that from 200 to 300 of our students fall into that category."
Yet Kamaile has worked a few minor miracles by meeting adversity head on — using the largely Hawaiian community's most famous asset: aloha.
Dedicated in 1989, Kamaile has over the past couple of years worked to be a facility that specializes in welcoming the disadvantaged children in its midst. Kids who may be treated as outcasts elsewhere find a home at Kamaile, administrators say.
At Kamaile there's less emphasis on filling out forms when homeless children register, and more on making them comfortable, Kila said. Such students are greeted with smiles, backpacks filled with supplies, and a T-shirt, he said. The Wai'anae Coast, Kila reminds people, has historically been a place of refuge. At Kamaile School, the tradition lives.
"It's easy to get into our school because we provide the additional support," Kila said. "We don't question the children or the parents. A measurement of success is that the children are smiling. At other schools, when the last school bell rings, they leave. Here, kids stick around."
In an area noted for high teacher turnover, Kamaile is an exception. "For the past two years we have had very few teachers leave the school — despite all of the needs," Kila said. "Our retention rate was very high."
This is all the more remarkable considering the challenges teachers face, he said. More than 90 percent of the students are from families that earn so little that their children qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a common measure of poverty.
Poverty and homelessness account for the school's high rate of student transiency, as well as the fact that the majority of its students come into the school as much as two years behind their normal grade level, Kila said. All of that places an extra burden on the school's teachers, who, despite the problems, are expected to meet the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
"This program is set up essentially to make our children feel like they belong," said second-grade teacher Paul Kepka. "It's to make them feel accepted in our school and to create a feeling of wellness — not just physical wellness, but overall mental wellness as well."
The program also includes a head lice treatment program. "Children can wash their clothes here — so they won't be embarrassed about coming to school dirty," Kila said. "They can go into the health room and shower. These are things the children feel comfortable enough to do coming to school straight off the beach."
The school's popular Kamaile Store is part of E Ola. The store is a motivational system that rewards students with stickers, toys and food for good behavior. And, thanks to donations from folks who read about the difficulties of Kamaile's homeless students, E Ola last month initiated its twice-weekly Morning Reading program, in which students are read to by their parents or volunteer staff members.
"Our children come in years behind being ready for school," Kila explained. "With the challenges of poverty and homelessness that affect a community like Kamaile, they don't have those early childhood readiness skills. So, how do we get these students to meet No Child Left Behind standards? It's tough. But our staff has come up with ways to provide services to these students so they can meet those standards."
In the afternoon, teachers at Kamaile shut the windows to keep out the blazing sunshine, which transforms the rooms into "brick ovens," he said.
Kila compared the sweltering classrooms to trying to study inside a car full of people in August with the heat turned on and the windows rolled up. Recently he was called on to serve as a substitute teacher for one class. On entering the classroom, Kila was startled to find all the children lying on the floor because the cooler tiles offered a measure of relief from the stifling heat.
" 'Get up,' " Kila confessed he told the students before he realized why they were there. "I was so embarrassed. I wanted to lay down on the floor myself, it was so hot."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
