Kamehameha Schools (Hawai’i)

"Hānai i ke keiki, ola ka lāhui”

(Nurture the child and the people thrive)

Forging Student Support Through an
Indigenous, Culturally-Aligned Lens

Challenges

At the time of our engagement, Kamehameha Schools was facing the challenges of updating their student support services while also maintaining their day-to-day commitments to students and parents. Other crises, including the COVID pandemic and the Lahaina fires also created heavy demand on internal resources. Ultimately, KS chose Elevate for our leadership in the field of school health and wellness, cultural awareness, experience supporting schools during crisis, and interdisciplinary team approach.

Further Context

Spread out over 180 acres of land, Kamehameha Schools Maui is an educational oasis for 1,100 students. Their 100% minority population of students are all Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders. Almost 65% of the student body receives additional financial aid.

Assessing Needs

Elevate, partnered with Kamehameha Schools’ internal audit department, conducted a thorough audit that reviewed student support services of the district’s 30 pre-schools and 1 K-12 campus and a follow-up education risk assessment. These collaboratively tailored assessments examined the current support services systems, including potential health-related threats to student academic progress and graduation.

Identified Needs

  1. A need for the formalization of student support and intervention processes to create equity of access to support services, community engagement, and shared accountability among students, teachers, staff, and parents.

  2. The importance of having student support excellence equal in priority to accomplishing their academic mission.

  3. Having an experienced and forward-thinking external partner who would adapt to their unique operations and mission of education.

  4. Receiving an objective and rigorous evaluation of student support roles, processes, and outcomes.

  5. Having a multi-tiered system of support framework and process that was reflective of distinct to their culture and customs and educational mission.

  6. Integrating services and systems, and enhancing cross-division buy-in.

Recommendations

From the internal audit and subsequent needs assessment, Elevate determined that the primary objective at Maui Campus was to implement a highly efficient and effective Hawaiian Multi-Tiered System of Support (HMTSS), which led to enhancing its Kūkulu Kumuhana framework, which they define as the critical process of building a support system for each child that includes family, teachers, and staff.

Implemented

  1. Universal Screenings enhancing early detection of student needs

  2. Parent brochure succinctly describing the campus support process and services

  3. Interim Benchmarking to track best practices implementation

  4. MTSS Manual detailing roles, responsibilities, services, and processes

  5. Tracking and reporting per division to illustrate population needs, services utilization, and support leadership decision-making

  6. Survey of faculty to identify gaps and most common student support needs

  7. Progress monitoring utilizing evidence-based assessment tools

Collaborative Successes

Project Areas where Elevate and KS have collaborated heavily to produce systematic solutions

Coordination

MTSS transitioned from fractured implementation
to unified adoption and shared accountability

Manual development created awareness of processes, actions, roles, and sharing of information

Transparency

Kūlulu Kumuhana has formalized as both a rigorous HMTSS system and organizational priority

Formalization

Agreements

Campus conversations led to agreements improving early detection and service efficiency

Client Transformations

  1. Constructed and implemented a referral action chart, resulting in students receiving needed services significantly sooner. This also helps ensure that student’s academic and social needs are met

  2. Establishing ongoing meaningful communication between teachers and administrators, cross-departmentally. Staff reported an increase in communication and efficient management of student needs

  3. Created a sense of shared accountability across teachers, students, family, and administration, with a greater understanding of responsibilities

  4. The support system implemented in Fall 2023 significantly helped identify students in crisis and triage of emotional support during the Maui (Lahaina) wildfires of August 2023.

  5. Implemented culturally-aligned, evidence-based interventions that reflect the individualized needs of the indigenous population of Hawai’i

Planting the Seeds

Since 2020, Elevate has continued to work in partnership with Kamehameha Schools. This continually strengthening partnership continues to invest in Kamehameha Schools’ students for years to come. As an immediate next step, Elevate plans to support KS with integrating its systems of record, project coordination and monitoring, student progress monitoring, and data-based decision-making.

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