Waialae On Course With Local Control
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Del.icio.usFor the second time, Waialae Elementary Public Charter School has earned a six-year national accreditation - the maximum term possible - indicating that local control and community involvement can tip the scales toward success.
As one measure of that success, the Kaimuki school also recently passed the DOE benchmarks for “adequate yearly progress” in math and reading.
“The accreditation process is a huge amount of work,” admitted Waialae’s chief education officer Wendy Lagareta, “so I’m very proud of everybody’s effort which made it happen.“The process takes over a year and involves a thorough self-study as well as visits from observers with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
The staff, faculty, school board and parents will now tackle tightening the curriculum, governance and behavior standards as well as its family support system, strategic plan and overall school improvement.
(The Waialae ohana will also break ground for a school garden on Saturday, which will require “muscles and sweat” as well as academic lessons in nutrition and agriculture.)
Headed by determined parents and school leaders some two decades ago, Waialae was also the first Hawaii public school to adopt a school/community-based management plan, Lagareta noted. It then evolved into the state’s first student-centered school, then the first new century charter school and finally in 1994 the first public charter school.
Key to that process - and still chairman Do you enjoy taking pictures? We accept good-quality photographs from East Oahu residents. Photos should be in good taste, in sharp focus and depict life in East Oahu. Mail photos to MidWeek Zones, 45-525 Luluku Road, Kaneohe, HI 96734. Digital photos are welcome by e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Remember to include a description of the photo, the names of all the people in the photo, your name and phone number.
of Waialae’s school board - is Bob Watada. The Hawaii Kai parent was active from the start, when his son Ehren was at the school. Waialae draws more than half its 400 K-5 students from outside its boundaries.
“Bob was the force behind a lot of these things,“Lagareta said.“He and others have done much to move the charter school concept forward.”
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