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23 Mar

Director DJ’s Message:

Happy almost Prince Kuhio Day to everyone in the Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School learning community! We hope that this message finds you in good health and happiness as we prepare to celebrate his holiday tomorrow.

Known as the citizen Prince for his life of dedication to the people of Hawai’i, Prince Kuhio was instrumental in fighting for the homelands of the native Hawai’ians. He diligently lobbied US Senators, once writing to them “After extensive investigation and survey on the part of various organizations organized to rehabilitate the Hawaiian race, it was found that the only method in which to rehabilitate the race was to place them back upon the soil.”

Prince Kuhio was born just down the road from our school in Koloa and the impact of his life of service is still felt today long after his passing. Due to the persistent efforts of Prince Kuhio and a group of advocates, President Warren G. Harding signed the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, of 1920. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act intended to return native Hawaiians to the land while encouraging them to become self-sufficient homesteaders on the leased parcels of trust land.

We hope everyone spends a moment or two on Monday to reflect on the incredible person that Prince Kuhio was and his impact on our lives in beautiful Hawai’i.

Last week on campus we were blessed to have a special guest in our Hawai’iana classes. Captain Steve will be working with Kumu Kali and all the learners in our school on building model replicas of the boat Hokule’a which holds a prominent place in the history of Hawai’i. Please watch for further details as Captain Steve will be visiting us for the next two weeks.

We look forward to sharing further details on our upcoming Makahiki Games in April and Na Kupu Lau in May in upcoming editions of the Monday Message.

Please enjoy the scenic photo below captured by Ms. Barb. Notice the heart shape in the valley created by the shadows of the sun on the trees. It’s a splendid photo and it clearly speaks of a school that wishes to live aloha daily.

Mahalo for your support of our unique charter school and malama pono.DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

AOK learners holding a large painting of the sunset

16 Mar

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the learning community of Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, and we hope this message finds you enjoying the last few hours of a festive Spring Break. We look forward to welcoming everyone back to campus to commence the last quarter of the 2022-2023 school year and would like to share some shifts coming on campus.

As most of you know already, Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School was unanimously granted approval by the state of Hawai’i Charter School Commissioners on March 9th to add Grade Seven (2023-2024) plus Grade Eight (2024-2025) so that we will become a full K-8 school. We are now working to ensure that we meet the expectations of highly qualified educators leading each of our classes. We have been advertising for a Hawai’i Teacher Standards Board-certified Hawai’iana teacher for several months now and can share that we internally found our candidate!

Kumu Kali will be moving from being the Grade Three/Four teacher to becoming the Hawai’iana teacher for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year. Kumu Kali has a Master’s Degree in Hawaiian studies from the University of Hawai’i and extensive teaching on several islands in Hawai’i. Kumu Kali spearheaded the introduction of the Makahiki Games to our school last April, so it is a perfect fit for all!

Ms. Emily (pictured below with Ms. Chasa) will remain as the Grade Three/Four teacher for the remainder of the school year to fill this vacancy left by moving Kumu Kali to the Hawai’iana teacher. Ms. Emily is already well known in our learning community for her warm smile and attention to detail with our learners.

Kumu Chris will shift from Hawai’iana teacher to Educational Assistant with Ms. Kate and the Grade Four class. Kumu Chris has already been in this role on Wednesdays and we plan to use his background knowledge in preparation for Na Kupu Lau in late May.

We also wish to introduce Kumu Nouveau (my apologies for the lack of a photo) to our learning community. He will be providing Physical Education to our learners in Kindergarten to Grade Six. We have asked Kumu Nouveau to please work with our keiki to assist with the preparation for the upcoming Mayor’s Track Meets on April 1st and April 2nd.

Mahalo for your support of our unique charter school and malama pono.DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

10 Mar

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the good people in the Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School learning community and welcome to Spring Break! We hope everyone enjoys some time away from campus to recharge their batteries and prepare for the homestretch of the 2022-2023 school year.

We share a historic Monday Message with you this week based on another trip over to visit with the diligent Hawai’i Charter School Commissioners. We presented our Education Plan for the addition of Grade Seven starting in 2023-2024 and Grade Eight in 2024-2025. We greatly appreciate all the contributors who assisted in the creation of the 116-page Education Plan that was presented. Over one dozen people contributed to its creation.

In addition, the ever-dedicated Alaka’i O Kaua’i Board of Directors were fully engaged and critical to the presentation of the Education Plan. We deliberated the document at our March 6th Subcommittee Meeting and then Kumu Chris Town accompanied me on the trip over to O’ahu. We also wish to acknowledge the numerous Grade Six students from our school who attended the meeting virtually to share their voices in expressing the wish to add a Middle School to Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School.

After a brief Powerpoint presentation from the school, a series of questions from the Hawai’i Charter Commissioners and a discussion followed. After this, the Commissioners unanimously removed all the conditions and granted Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School our Grade Seven and Grade Eight requests.

We wish to express our gratitude to those dedicated people who turned the dream of our school serving keiki from Kindergarten to Grade Eight into a reality. The school has waited five long years to successfully have this addition and we greatly appreciate all the efforts of so many incredibly dedicated people.

Read Across America Spirit Week to celebrate the importance of reading was another resounding success this year. It seems that the creativity of our keiki and their ohana increases every single year and there are not enough photos to capture all the crazy socks, identical twins, wacky hairstyles, and great headwear we saw this week.

Our unique and quite amazing school could not be the special place that it is without all three essential pillars that make it shine: the inquisitive learners, the talented staff, and the supportive learning community. Mahalo nui kakou to you all.

Best wishes for a fun-filled Spring Break and we look forward to seeing everyone back on campus on March 20th.

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

02 Mar

What Is Outer Space? Presentation of Learning 2022-2023

01 Mar

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the good people in the learning community of Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, and hope this message finds you in good health and happiness as we enter the month of March.

The start of March marks the annual “Read Across America” Week on campus which is an event celebrating the importance of literacy. Once again Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School will recognize “Read Across America” with a Spirit Week and we wish to give gratitude to Mrs. Shay for spearheading these events.

Monday, March 6th- Celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday with a “Cat in the Hat” Day on campus. Students are encouraged to wear their favorite hat to school that day. In the afternoon we will hold a school wide DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time, hopefully outside in the field again this year.

Tuesday, March 7th- “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” Day on campus. Students are welcome to recognize the day by wearing red, blue, or dressing up as a twin with another student.

Wednesday, March 8th- “Wacky Wednesday” comes to campus and everyone is encouraged to come to school with crazy hair or crazy socks.

Thursday, March 9th- We will celebrate “Green Eggs and Ham” Day on campus by welcoming everyone to wear green to school that day.

Friday, March 10th- Hawai’i State Teacher Association Day on campus and there is NO SCHOOL for students on Friday, March 10th. Staff will be working on sharing rubrics across grade levels and examining the electronic learning platforms for the 2023-2024 school year.

A helpful reminder for your planning purposes that Spring Break runs from Saturday, March 11th to Sunday, March 19th. We will return to campus on Monday, March 20th for a regular day of school. We hope that everyone enjoys a wonderful break.

Best wishes to you all for a happy week of reading!

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

23 Feb

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School learning community, and we hope this message finds you in good health and happiness as we move towards the end of February.

We wish to recognize great appreciation for all the tremendous support that we have enjoyed from our learning community. The photos in this week’s message outline the gift of time and expertise, in the last school year alone, that people have given unconditionally to improve the educational experience for our learners. We started the 2022-2023 way back in last July with the annual Campus Cleanup and sailed through Trunk or Treat, Holiday Performance, and our Chess Club. These are just a small sampling of the countless contributions that our learning community gives generously to our school.

Mahalo nui loa for all of your selfless acts of kindness to add numerous programs to our school. Despite being a tiny school with a small staff of less than thirty people, Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School has been able to offer unique programs not often found in schools with a student population of 500 learners. These programs have been achieved by our dedicated staff and supportive learning community working together in collaboration.

As we move towards the last quarter of the 2022-2023 school year, we have several upcoming large events that once again could use your assistance. We have Makahiki Games in April and Na Kupu Lau in May. Both of these important events will occur on campus. We are also looking forward to participating in the annual Mayor’s Track Meet for the first time during the first weekend in April (see the PDF below before more information about this event). We will definitely need parent assistance to help marshal our keiki to their events at the proper time.

Let’s all continue to work together to provide as many learning opportunities for our students as possible! We appreciate your willingness to be part of our learning community and collaborate to empower continuous growth at our school.

Malama pono.

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

Mayor’s Track Meet PDF:
Mayor_s_Track_Meet

20 Feb

Project-based Learning

16 Feb

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the learning community of Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, and we hope this message finds you in good health and happiness during this long President’s Day weekend, despite the challenges of a Kona low storm in the islands. A helpful reminder that Monday, February 20th is Presidents Day and there will be no school for students tomorrow.

Although the weather has been cooler and rainy, the climate on campus last week was filled with aloha and love to celebrate Valentines Day! Our learning community is blessed to have such thoughtful, generous, and supportive people and staff that helped around campus so that our learners could be treated with so many delicious goodies. Valentines Day provided a fun day on campus but also provided the opportunity to showcase student creativity and thoughts.

Witness the artistic expression of the Grade Four class who built their own Valentines Day boxes in the photo below. They solicited responses from each learner on campus about “What Is Love?” and then created this wonderful display outside their classroom which is also included as the thumbnail photo this week. It is fascinating to read their responses and learn more about our learners.

Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School also wishes to share some Spelling Bee successes with our learning community. Ho’omaika’i to Makoa who recently won the Junior Spelling Bee on campus. The competition even needed to extend into double digit rounds due to the quality of our participants.

Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School is thrilled to announce that Orah recently was named Runner-Up in the County of Kaua’i Spelling Bee and she will now head off to the State Championships on O’ahu. Best wishes to Orah at the state level! We also wish to express our appreciation to Ms. Giselle in her work supporting the school Spelling Bee program.

Mahalo for your support of our unique charter school. Malama pono.

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

AOK school building in the forefront with a rainbow in the sky in the background

11 Feb

Director DJ’s Message:

Aloha mai kakou to the good people in the Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School learning community. We hope this message at the midpoint of February finds you in good health and happiness. A helpful reminder that Monday, February 13th with be the annual Hawai’i State Teachers Association (HSTA) Institute Day and the teachers’ union provides professional learning for our educators on that day. Accordingly, there will be no school for students tomorrow so everyone can enjoy Super Bowl festivities a little longer.

The late, great basketball player Kobe Bryant once remarked “Dedication makes dreams come true” and these wise words perfectly describe the outstanding service to our school from Mr. Jon. The dream of Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School would not have become a reality without the selfless efforts of Mr. Jon over the last five years.

A perfect example of Mr. Jon’s dedication comes out of a recent challenge on campus last week. The massive thunderstorms that graced our beautiful island on Saturday, February 4th, knocked out our internet service on campus. Jon immediately leaped into action over the weekend and attempted on both Saturday and Sunday to get the system operational. Over the course of the next five days Jon spent countless hours including staying on campus until 10pm on Tuesday night to get the necessary repairs completed. Due in great part to his efforts and dedication, our school finally did get the internet damages repaired and back functioning late on Wednesday afternoon.

Jon was the very first employee at our school. He literally carved our unique charter school back from the jungle, as our current premises had sat vacant for numerous years with no tenants. It took a special person with a special set of skills and mindset for this to happen. We applaud Jon for his outstanding service and dedication to our school! Next time you see Jon on campus please take some time to share some aloha his way for making the dream a reality.

Hope the Super Bowl turned out as you had hoped and best wishes to you all for a terrific week.

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

03 Feb

Director’s Message

Aloha mai kakou to the generous people in the Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School learning community. We hope this message finds you in good health and happiness as we move into the month of February. We wish to send this week’s Monday Message in great appreciation for your kind support of our annual Jog-A-Thon.

This year’s edition of the Jog-A-Thon was held on Friday, January 27th under near perfect weather conditions on campus. There was clear bright sunshine with milder temperatures and light breezes to keep our learners from overheating. Each of our keiki walked, jogged, or ran for 15 minutes during their morning recess and completed laps around the field across the road from Main Campus.

We are proud of each and every one of our learners for their participation and here are the top performers from the day:

Kindergarten
Nakoa Cummings
Huxley Peterson
Dove Vastola

Grade One
Beckham Frazer
Akea Kali
Kahoku Tam
Mia Branscomb

Grade Two
Michael Schmeider
Tatiana Zimmerman

Grade Three
Jaxen Nielsen
Gabrielle Gregorius

Grade Four
Zander Michaels
Rosa Stares

Grade Five
Dustin Kaneakua
Ember Taylor

Grade Six
Sawyer Kimball
Orah McGee

We also wish to express our gratitude for the wonderful financial that our unique charter school received in our one major fundraiser for the school year. We are blessed to share that the learners at Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School raised over $11,000 in this event that will directly support activities like enrichments, projects based learning activities, and field trips. The philosophy is that the monies that are raised should go DIRECTLY back to the people who raised it- our keiki.

Mahalo nui for your support of the fastest improving charter school in the state of Hawai’i and malama pono.

DJ Adams – Po’o Kumu (Director), Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School, Koloa, Hawai’i

“Ua ola no i ka pane a ke aloha.” There is life in a kindly reply.

02 Feb

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