On Nov. 28 over 1,000 state office personnel convened for a day of conversation and reflection about our Strategic Plan implementation, and to consider how the state-level team must organize to support school-based innovations to prepare all of our keiki for college and careers. We discussed our driving mission to provide equitable access to quality education using three key strategies: school design, student voice and teacher collaboration.

The difference in this convening was that we brought together employees who don’t often converse due to their varied responsibilities and functions — carpenters, electricians, curriculum developers, Hawaiian immersion staff, support staff, transportation and food service teams, technology teams, communications staff, finance staff, assistant superintendents. Imagine this collective in one room with a focus on ensuring quality for our keiki!

As a state team we considered our call to action to work together as a powerful, influential learning organization focused on incorporating new models of delivering improved learning opportunities, as well as finding space for innovative ideas. Your questions, comments and suggestions were inspiring!

And they reflected your dedication to work together around the essential question of the day: how do we prepare students for the economies and communities of the future? We agree that our core work is decreasingly about subject mastery, and increasingly about preparing students with the skill sets to apply themselves through design thinking, creative thinking, logic and computational skill, literacy and communication, problem solving, and teamwork, while pursing their passions as lifelong learners.

So what does this tell us about how schools should transition from designs we adults remember and evolve into new concepts — in the physical campus and classrooms, in our delivery of academic and social-emotional supports, in the ways in which we assess progress, and in leadership and community and business involvement? Together we will continue to learn together as the HIDOE education team.

As we continue to build upon our teaching and learning core, I encourage you to consider how your role should evolve to support schools in this vital work. View the “HIDOE Learning Organization” graphic here. (See below.)

Dr. Christina M. Kishimoto
SUPERINTENDENT