Hawaiian immersion school parents organize opposition to OHA grantee
Parents from Hālau Kū Māna Hawaiian immersion school have concerns with an OHA education grant being awarded to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.
Parents of Hālau Kū Māna (HKM) students say they plan to attend the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) board meeting this Thursday, September 21, 2017 to express concern over a $1.5 million grant OHA is planning to give to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) on behalf of 17 Hawaiian Focus Charter Schools (HFCS), including HKM.
“While we understand that CNHA won the competitive bid process, this organization did not consult with our poʻo kumu or with the Hawaiian charter school leaders, as a collective, before applying to take this kuleana,” the HKM parents wrote in a statement released Wednesday, September 20.
In years past, the grant has been awarded to Kanu o ka ʻĀina Learning ʻOhana (KALO), whose mission is to serve and perpetuate “sustainable Hawaiian communities through Education with Aloha.” Programs KALO has spearheaded and provided in the past include the Hālau Wānana teacher certification program, Ke Ea Hawaiʻi interscholastic student council, an MEdT program for rising school leaders, and the Kuʻi ka Lono conference for haumāna, kumu, poʻo and the community.
“KALO has supported our schools since the very beginning, respecting each school’s autonomy while providing services and organizing events that have brought us together,” said the HKM parents. “In contrast, CNHA leaders did not even seek basic consent from our schools to receive these monies on our behalf.”
“As an organization, CNHA has been absent from ongoing discussions and advocacy and out of touch on our priorities as a collective,” said HKM principal, Brandon Bunag.
Bunag says the funds are vital to the success and survival of HFCS schools, all of which are community-based and use culturally responsive curriculum. Many of the parents that plan to attend the OHA meeting have been a part of the HKM community or involved with other Hawaiian educational organizations for years.
“We are deeply concerned about the way that CNHA has approached this relationship, and we feel that our school is being forced into a relationship with an organization that is not aligned with our values as a learning community,” said the HKM parents in their statement.
The HKM ʻAha Mākua met on Thursday, September 14, 2017 and voted unanimously to oppose CNHA’s proposed administration of the OHA funding for Hawaiian charter schools. As of publication, more than 160 letters from parents from 13 of the affected Hawaiian charter schools have been submitted in opposition to CNHA’s administration of the OHA HFCS grant. An additional 60 parent letters have been sent directly to CNHA asking them not to accept the grant.
The parents will be asking OHA to make changes to how the agency supports Native Hawaiian education going forward: “We are also asking OHA to revise the request for proposals in the future to limit it to, or prioritize, nonprofit organizations that make Hawaiian education central to their mission and operations, or to grant the monies directly to the schools themselves or the schools’ supporting nonprofits.”
