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 after a long weekend. Hopefully, you were able to spend some time in respect and gratitude to all of our veterans last Friday as the campus was closed for Veterans Day. We greatly appreciate the service and sacrifice of many people so that we can enjoy this amazing country.

Last weekend a team of people who work at Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School traveled to Honolulu for The Thinking Classroom Hawai’i culminating event entitled REIMAGINING EDUCATION. The Thinking Classroom Hawai’i is a project that examines excellent teaching and is co-sponsored by the Hawai’i Charter Commission and Harvard University. Ms. Andra and Ms. Kelly Ann, two of our staff members, presented at the event on their findings and experiences at our school. Their presentations were outstanding and once again demonstrated that this school lives up to our name “Alaka’i O Kaua’i”.

Mahalo nui to Ms. Claire for starting a Drama Club at our school. They had their first session on Tuesday and the group is already at capacity which speaks highly of the engagement of our learning community. We are optimistic that this group, under steady guidance, will put together a performance for our school.

Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School continues to see a wide variety of project-based learning activities ongoing at our campus. In the theme of continuous improvement, sometimes these project-based learning activities also end up in facility improvements. Mahalo to Mr. Jon and Mr. Adam who are currently constructing a garden area for the Kindergarten class which will be a key part of their project-based learning activity infused with a grant opportunity.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed several incidents on campus this year with some of our younger learners making extremely inappropriate comments to others at school without them comprehending the severity of their words. To try and decipher the genesis of such outrageous statements, Ms. Miranda, our Graduate Counseling student, conducted an investigation and discovered a common denominator: the video game Roblox. We appreciate and respect that leisure activities at home are none of the business of our school, but we want to share these valuable learnings for parents from Ms. Miranda:

• Roblox contains adult content. Roblox is a user-generated game platform, which means that users/players can create and play games with other users/players. These kinds of games can pose a risk for children as it is an open-world platform and anyone can create an account and play.
• Parents can protect their children by making restrictions and monitoring children’s chats, followers, and game history. Roblox also offers a feature that allows parents to limit the ability to chat, and the types of experiences their children can access.
• In case you are searching for other options, Alaka’i O Kaua’i Charter School has an i-Ready learning platform in place that features safe and appropriate learning games.

Best wishes to you all for a wonderful week ahead. Malama pono.