New schools chief aims to make Hawaii No. 1

Hawaii’s newly appointed schools superintendent says she has her sights set on raising student achievement in the islands above the rest of the country’s public schools.

Christina Kishimoto, who starts as schools chief Aug. 1, contends the ambitious goal is attainable.

“To want to be the No. 1 state in terms of educational quality is a vision that I believe we can deliver on, and we have lots of the groundwork in place, really, to start moving forward in that direction,” Kishimoto told reporters Wednesday. “I will bring my thought leadership, but I welcome everyone’s thought leadership at the table. It’s the collaboration that’s going to create the No. 1 school district across the states.”

Kishimoto, who most recently was superintendent and chief executive officer for Gilbert Public Schools, a Phoenix-area school district, spoke with media while in town this week to search for a home and meet with Department of Education leadership and staff. The Board of Education announced last month that she’s been given a three-year contract at an annual salary of $240,000.

Kishimoto said her top priority will be crafting an implementation plan for the DOE’s 2017-20 strategic plan, which sets out goals for graduating more students, enrolling more graduates in college, retaining more teachers, improving test scores and closing the so-called achievement gap between high-needs students and their peers.

“Now the challenge for us is to put an implementation plan together. The strategic plan is well-written, and it certainly is focused on what members of the field — our teachers and our leaders — have indicated are priorities,” she said. “But the implementation plan needs to be developed now in terms of what do the strategies look like, specifically.”

Kishimoto said a key to designing successful schools will be ensuring that students and communities have a say in how best to tailor learning.

“There’s lots of conversation happening nationally about where student voice fits in, where community, culture, language fits into the design of an educational system,” Kishimoto said. “In Hawaii, we have this appreciation of what communities bring to a classroom, bring to a school, and there is this understanding that every community school is not going to look the same. And that, to me, is a particular strength.”

She added that while it’s easy to give lip service to the idea of a student-centered school system, she embraces the concept.

“All decisions are going to be focused on what’s best for the child, what’s best for students. How do we design schools around this concept of being very student-centered,” Kishimoto said. “And that is something that most people will nod their head and say, ‘Yes, that’s important.’ But it’s difficult work to do, to say that it’s not about what the adults want, but to be flexible as adults with our expertise to listen to the children in school system, and take their feedback in mind, into consideration, when we’re looking at the design of a school.”

Under outgoing Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi’s tenure, more students are graduating on time and are better prepared for the rigor of college coursework, state test scores are on the rise and more students are earning college credit in high school.

Nationally, a 2015 “Laggards to Leaders” report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation ranked Hawaii as having the second-highest gains in reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress exams over an eight-year period.

On Education Week’s annual “Quality Counts” ranking of states’ performance in public education, Hawaii is just below the national average with an overall C grade. The highest-ranking state, Massachusetts, received a B in this year’s report, which Education Week describes as the most comprehensive ongoing assessment of the state of American education.

During the transition between the end of Matayoshi’s term and the start of Kishimoto’s term, the DOE announced that Keith Hayashi would serve as interim superintendent for one month.

Hayashi, Waipahu High School’s award-winning principal who has been serving as interim deputy superintendent since March, will head the public school system for the month of July before returning to his post at Waipahu.

Replacing Hayashi as interim deputy superintendent will be Amy Kunz, who currently serves as senior assistant superintendent and chief financial officer.