Kahaluu’s Takeno Lauded By DOE
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The state Department of Education’s best employee and best team for 2010 are both from Windward schools.
For the second year in a row, Kahaluu Elementary School has produced the DOE Outstanding Employee of the Year. Food services manager Nora Takeno, who will retire at semester’s end, took her place in the awards spotlight Sept. 9, cited for her ability to inspire children to greater achievement and for making everyone feel welcome at school. (Kahaluu’s 2009 honoree, education assistant Todd Nakaoka, is still on campus helping the kids.)
“The students are like my children, and the community is like my family,” said Takeno, a grandmother and proud parent of three successful Castle High graduates.“Hopefully I’ve touched the lives of these kids.”
“Nora’s invaluable,“said principal Naomi Matsuzaki,“and she goes out of her way to provide healthy foods. She’s also at the center of any Kahaluu community event.“These include First Night, Thanksgiving Day lunch (620 guests in 2009) and Breakfast with Santa, where Takeno is the secret Santa who gets the holiday gifts for 300 people, as well as planning and serving the meal with her kitchen team.
The school’s recent “worm night” (about vermicom-posting), showed her imaginative touch. Matsuzaki said Takeno “prepared a spaghetti dinner and an Oreo dessert cup, complete with Gummy worms.”
The Ahuimanu woman’s kalua pig, lomi salmon and shortbread cookies are legendary. Just ask any of her cookie fans after the annual bake off (held last weekend). To order cookies and support the grade 4 Big Island trip,call 239-3106. It’s $4 per baker’s dozen, while they last. It will be Takeno’s final bake off,after a 28-year DOE career. Or maybe not. She said her first project as a retiree is to raise funds to bring back the school yearbook.
At Olomana School’s secure-custody facility,meanwhile, John De Virgilio, Raymond Gaughen Jr., Sione Mafoaaeata, Daniel Suzuki, Dean Wilhelm, Keoni Yadao and Collin Young won DOE Team of the Year honors. In four years’ time, they have reworked the vocational and tech ed program with innovative methods in order to regain compliance from the U.S. Department of Justice.
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