Trailblazing principal Keith Hayashi is picked to direct Hawaii’s community faculties

Keith Hayashi, the tempo-setting principal of Waipahu Higher University who is credited with increasing general public training to new heights, will choose the reins as interim superintendent of general public colleges Aug. 1.

The Board of Schooling unanimously chose the veteran educator Thursday to exchange educational institutions Superintendent Christina Kishimoto even though a lengthier-term search for a superintendent is
underway.

“I am humbled and honored to be chosen to direct our community school system throughout this changeover,” he advised reporters right after the meeting. “This is such a important time for the department, and I am dedicated to connecting with our faculties, intricate areas and state workplace leaders to ensure that we are very well ready for the approaching university 12 months.”

Hayashi, 56, is eligible to use for the lasting superintendent place and explained, in response to a problem, that he intends to do so. He declined to explore steps he may possibly just take as interim main, out of regard for Kishimoto, who will be superintendent by means of July.

Questioned no matter whether he considered mother and father must have a distance discovering alternative in the coming school year, an problem that cropped up at the board meeting, he spoke only of his own college.

“As principal at Waipahu Higher, we have been extremely dedicated to returning our learners thoroughly in man or woman,” he explained. “We want to make certain that at Waipahu … we assist our college students not only academically, but we are also addressing the social/psychological ingredient for individuals students, for them to come again and be equipped to interact with their friends. Our lecturers and their college students are incredibly much hunting ahead to returning in the tumble.”

Because Hayashi turned principal in 2009, Waipahu Higher has focused on launching pupils toward faculty and occupations with programs suitable to serious life. Just about every university student is a member of a nationally identified model career academy, which include pupils with substantial disabilities. The 6 academies assortment from health to engineering to community services.

Unfavorable stereotypes that when dogged the faculty have been obliterated less than his leadership. Instead, Waipahu students are identified for having faculty courses at their substantial college campus as early as their freshman yr and carrying out authentic study that is published in national scientific journals.

“He truly often thinks of learners initial, what is in the best fascination of the students,” explained Mark Silliman, who not too long ago retired as director of Waipahu’s revolutionary Early Faculty software. “He is selfless, and anything he does is to enhance, to improve the range of prospects that we can give our college students of all sorts.”

“You have people today who are having difficulties, you have people today who have specific wants, you have college students who are performing definitely very well,” Silliman stated in an interview. “He’s there for every solitary one particular of them, no matter if it is band, teachers, athletics, each and every facet of university student daily life.”

The greater part of college students at Waipahu Large occur from low-profits people, and when poverty can hamper scholar accomplishment, the employees will work to take away hurdles and broaden students’ horizons.

A single remarkable indicator of Waipahu’s achievement is the reality that 10 of its pupils qualified for the 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholars system, out of a whole of 64 students who capable statewide from each non-public and public educational facilities. And three Waipahu pupils went on to develop into semi­finalists, out of the state’s eight semifinalists. (Eventually, this year’s two Presidential Students hailed from Punahou and ‘Iolani.)

In 2012 Waipahu Substantial launched the state’s to start with Early University plan, which delivers professors onto high school campuses to educate college classes. Due to the fact then it has taken off and spread to universities statewide. Virtually a quarter of the 2,800 college students at Waipahu Superior now just take college or university classes. This spring, 22 seniors had acquired plenty of credits to receive their higher education associate’s levels at the exact time as their substantial college diplomas.

Waipahu was also the very first large faculty in the nation to obtain permission to constitution its personal chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the honor modern society for local community faculties. This year the national Phi Theta Kappa bestowed on Hayashi an honor that till then had been given only to school presidents: the Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction.

“I want persons to know that he will be as dynamic a leader for each and every college student in our condition as he was for Waipahu and for the many other colleges he labored for as he moved by his profession,” stated Silliman, a previous group higher education chancellor. “He is an exceptionally really hard employee.”

Hayashi commenced his profession in 1989 teaching at Lehua Elementary University and went on to grew to become an instructional chief, principal and advanced-location superintendent. He loaded in briefly as interim superintendent in advance of Kishimoto started out the task in August 2017. Silliman said Haya­shi has an uncanny potential to deliver out the best in each individual member of his workers.

“He is a individual who will give you the liberty and latitude to be impressive and inventive and to get hazards,” Silliman claimed. “It’s unconventional to uncover leaders that are like that.”

A solution of Hawaii’s community faculties, Hayashi graduated from Kaimuki Large College and acquired his bachelor’s diploma as very well as two master’s levels from the College of Hawaii at Manoa, one particular in academic administration and the other in curriculum and instruction. In 2018 he had the pleasure of handing his daughter her diploma at her Waipahu Higher graduation.

Hayashi was named condition Principal of the Yr by the Association of Secondary School Principals in 2014. The Hawaii Affiliation of Profession and Specialized Education and learning named him Administrator of the Year in 2019. Previously, he been given the Masayuki Tokioka Excellence in College Management Award.

“The learners at Waipahu Large College are extremely fortunate to have Keith blaze a path of opportunity for them that they could not get at any other public significant school in the state,” Sandra Yorong, president of the Friends of Waipahu Higher School, wrote in a letter to the board. “As superintendent for the Department of Education, we are assured that Keith will convey that very same energy to aid all beneficiaries in the Hawaii community school program.”

“He will make Hawaii the very best public faculty procedure in the nation, an option the Division of Training and the state of Hawaii cannot afford to skip,” Yorong extra.

The interim superintendent place is envisioned to very last many months, at an annual salary of $210,000.