Aloha Notes: My career as a School Psychologist in Hawaii

What do Honolulu School District school psychologists do over summer when classrooms are mostly empty and  students are enjoying their time at the beach?   May 2013 The last week of school at any school is always chaotic and for Kaiser High School, it was no different--seniors were getting ready to graduate, teachers were busy preparing and grading exams, and counselors and administrators were frantically wrapping up the school year. In the middle of the end of the year madness, the counselors and I got word that we all had to pack and move our offices....  (((Ah! Really?!)))  You really don't realize how much stuff you have in an office until you have to pack it all up and move. It really wasn't so bad though considering i was moving one building over. By mid June, I had packed my office and unpacked my files into their new home. Being a 12-month employee, I don't get summers off like my fellow school psychologists in California (iusd). Summers a...

Hawaii first state at risk of losing education money Posted: Dec 22, 2011 11:56 AM HST HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The Hawaii Department of Education is struggling to make the grade and now the state has been warned it could lose $75 million in federal funding as a result. Hawaii is one of 10 states in line to get millions of dollars for education and the state has to speed up its new policy plans if it wants to keep the money. Slow progress and missed milestones are a couple reasons why the state was put on high risk status for the Race to the Top money. "Because of Hawaii's unsatisfactory performance during the first 14 months of the grant, we are placing Hawaii's race to the top grant on high-risk status," wrote Ann Whalen, U.S. Department of Education Policy and Program Implementation Director, in a letter to Governor Neil Abercrombie. "The State has not demonstrated adequate progress implementing its approved plans," wrote Whalen. "The Department ...

I had no idea what a complex school psychologist meant or how it would be different than my training in California...but it's really not as "complex" as you may think.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- District:  The statewide school system is divided into seven administrative districts, including Oahu’s Honolulu, Central, Leeward and Windward districts; the Big Island’s Hawaii district; Maui District has Maui, Molokai and Lanai; and the Kauai district. Within each district, smaller areas are divided into 'complex' areas, based on the high schools and all the feeder schools .  Honolulu School District:  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Complex:  The complex I work in is called Kaiser Complex and is in the East side of Oahu. There are four elemen...