MAY MEETING We had a wonderful lively luncheon May meeting at California Pizza Kitchen, compliments of our own Ellen Schroeder. Mahalo, Ellen!

Discussed...

The year for our Hawai‘i schools - issues and successes in the DOE, the BOE, and education measures presented to the legislature. (Only free lunch for those on reduced lunch made it through.) We discussed schedules, our recent experiment to try evening meetings, voted that days are better for most. We are looking forward to bringing in speakers- from the DOE, BOE, legislature and others in education and Hawai‘i community life including teachers and students.

OUR NEXT MEETING JUNE 24th Tuesday @ Noon

@PACT (Parents and Children Together) 1300 Halona St., Honolulu. (Easy parking at the first gate, come in the rear door direct to the lovely conference room.)

or via Zoom @ PACT we will serve lunch first, please grab your plate between 11:30am and Noon we will begin the meeting at noon as we enjoy lunch together. Many of us have a weakness for Key Lime Pie. I will bake the healthiest version (still delicious) - vegan with optional yogurt topping -- and the richest version (scrumptious, I believe) -with the richest ingredients. You be the judge!

MEETING SCHEDULING GOING FORWARD 2nd Tuesday of each month, Alternating Virtual and Hybrid (In-person +virtual)

July 8th - VIRTUAL

August 12th - IN-PERSON + VIRTUAL September 9th - VIRTUAL

October 14th - IN-PERSON + VIRTUAL November 11th - VIRTUAL

December 9th - IN-PERSON + VIRTUAL

As we consider ...

• federal education funding at risk,
• legislature reluctant to allocate to education given federal concerns,
• challenges to DEI,
• fear of immigrant harassment in schools,
• inspiring initiatives by teachers, organizations, schools, and district departments,
• advances in technology to boost learning engagement, teacher time, systems integration,
• gap between our most and least advantaged students,
• ongoing chronic absenteeism,
• COVID learning loss,
• pernicious achievement lags,
• science of reading, math play, PBL, coding, SEL, Special Ed
• continued school facility issues,
• OST - the need for out of school time programs for our keiki,
• Community Schools
• continued challenge to increase family engagement

... We welcome your suggestions

for the issues and speakers you would like our meetings to feature.

Mahalo for all you do!

Deborah

director@heecoalition.org

Deborah Bond-Upson