MA'ILI — Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto received praise last night from her bosses — the Board of Education — in the first of the annual evaluations of her second four-year contract.

Board Chairman Breene Harimoto said the board rated her as "meeting expectations."

He thanked the superintendent for her "dedication to moving the system forward."

For her part, Hamamoto thanked the board for its "continued support."

Hamamoto presented a self-evaluation to the board in executive session, after which Harimoto said the board had positive things to say about the superintendent.

State Rep. Roy Takumi, chairman of the House Education Committee, also had praise for Hamamoto.

"I think Pat has the toughest job in the state," Takumi said earlier yesterday. "And she's doing a very good job. The average career expectation (for a superintendent) is three or four years and she came on board in December of 2001. She's at the four-year mark and for change, you need longevity and continuity."

Takumi said that "you can really sense" Hamamoto's commitment to the state's children.

"I think she has realized you focus on a few things and try to do them well. It's impossible in state government to be all things to all people. She has focused on the benchmarks like second-grade reading and giving more autonomy to individual schools."

Takumi said the Legislature is in agreement in believing that the system ought to have more flexibility.

But Hamamoto has made the point that change comes slowly, especially a change of the scope she and the Department of Education are attempting.

Randy Moore, one of her close associates in the department, notes that when radical change is under way, things usually get worse before they get better. He compares it to an airplane taking off from an aircraft carrier and dipping toward the water before it soars.

Hamamoto, who will inevitably be judged on how much the schools improve under federal guidelines of No Child Left Behind, is still struggling to bring the schools up as fast as she would like them to move. Recent scores, especially for the national report card, show that Hawai'i students are still testing near the bottom. As well, while many schools have shown significant improvement over the past three years, there is still far to go to meet the federal mandate of all students achieving competency in both reading and math by 2014.

In addition, Hamamoto has the added weight of striving to improve schools while the governor is uncertain about how best to organize the state school board, and whether the single board should be broken into many district boards.

Roger Takabayashi, president of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, said he believes that Hamamoto does speak up for teachers "and she does acknowledge the teachers are working tremendously hard to meet the mandates of NCLB."

But on the other side, he said that there are still many things the department and Hamamoto have to address — in particular the time demands on teachers. Most teachers are putting in 15 extra hours every week just to meet the demands of their jobs, including meetings after school with parents and families of children with special needs.

"The ship is moving rather fast," said Takabayashi. "The big issue is time. Teachers are pressed to get all the things done in a limited amount of time."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.