New superintendent says inequity fueled her drive to improve public schools

Growing up in low-income public housing in the Bronx and attending New York City public schools, Christina Kishimoto experienced firsthand the effects of learning in an uneven school system, where resources vary greatly between neighborhoods.

The newly hired head of Hawaii public schools, now 48, says her top priority here will be ensuring that every child has access to a high-quality education — regardless of where they live or their family’s socioeconomic status.

“We had no textbooks, we didn’t have the appropriate teachers and the playgrounds in some of our schools were actually taken out,” she recalled in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “We had teachers who really cared about what was happening in the school system and loved us and cared for us and pushed us, and yet they did the best they could. They didn’t have the content background to prepare us for high school.”

Kishimoto, whose parents immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico, said while she managed to earn good grades, she knew she lagged behind her peers in some subjects and envied the campuses that her cousins attended in wealthier neighborhoods. The inequity she saw helped fuel her passion for improving public education.

“That set of experiences started driving this interest I have in, why do we have schools that are different from schools that other kids have access to?” she said. “I knew I wanted to have an impact in some way and have a say.”

The experience also taught her the value of community.

“While my environment was rough in that way, and tough, the love I had from my family and my church and my neighborhood was great, coming together to support one another,” she said. “So when we talk about communities coming together, that’s why I really believe it’s at the community level that you build out strong educational systems and strong schools. You have got to build on the strengths that exist in communities.”

Educational politics

After high school Kishimoto went on to earn a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Connecticut and a doctorate in education administration from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

She started her career in higher education — working for the University of Connecticut and Wesleyan University — before being hired as a consultant to the Connecticut Department of Education to design and implement school improvement plans for struggling schools under the old federal No Child Left Behind law. She later joined the Hartford Public Schools as assistant superintendent for school design, overseeing reform efforts. Kishimoto was later promoted to the district’s top job, serving as superintendent from 2011 to 2014 for a district with 50 schools and 25,000 students.

From Hartford she relocated to Arizona, where she served as superintendent and chief executive officer for Gilbert Public Schools, a Phoenix-area school district made up of 40 schools with 38,000 students.

“I’m proud that I chose to go into the public sector and say, ‘I’m going to dedicate my thought leadership and my life to making a difference and a dent where I can to lead in places where I truly believe in the public education system,’” she said.

When Kishimoto was announced as one of two finalists for Hawaii’s schools chief job, some criticism surfaced of her time in Hartford and Gilbert.

The school board in Connecticut had given her low marks on her job performance, citing a perceived lack of urgency for improving student achievement. The board, whose members had turned over since her hiring, later unanimously rejected Kishimoto’s request for a contract extension. She also faced some backlash in Gilbert, which she described as a highly conservative community and district.

Kishimoto contends she left both districts in a good condition and says she’s proud of her record of negotiating teacher contracts, overseeing large construction budgets and helping improve student outcomes.

“You have to understand the politics of these public education systems,” she said of her critics, adding that her daughter stayed back in Arizona to finish high school. “The fact is, if I wasn’t comfortable with how I left that district, I certainly wouldn’t leave my own child behind to finish up her senior year there.”

Leadership style

Kishimoto said her leadership style can make some people uncomfortable.

“I will always lead boldly. I’m mostly fearless, and you have to be when you want to make changes that are going to matter to kids in public education,” she said. “You’ve got to have a little bit of a Teflon back to be in this role, because it isn’t always going to be pretty. At the same time, the work is amazing and extremely meaningful.”

In Hawaii she is charged with leading the nation’s ninth-largest school district, with 256 schools, 34 charters and 180,000 students. The Board of Education executed a three-year contract with an annual $240,000 salary for Kishimoto, who replaces Kathryn Matayoshi.

BOE Chairman Lance Mizumoto said the board stands ready to support Kishimoto.

“We’re going to support our decision, we’re going to support the superintendent and it’s important for the entire community to support her,” he said. “It’s in all of our best interests to do that at this point. … We want to support her role and make sure that she’s successful, otherwise it’s a reflection on all of us.”

Officials with the Education Institute of Hawaii, a proponent of school empowerment, echoed Mizumoto’s comments.

“The bottom line is we want her to succeed,” said Ray L’Heureux, vice president and chairman-elect for the nonprofit think tank. “We are in a position to do whatever it takes on our behalf to help her succeed.”

Strategic plan

Kishimoto is joining the administration at a critical time for public schools. She is tasked with crafting an implementation plan for the board and department’s joint strategic plan, which sets out goals over the next three years 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.

She will need to complement that effort with ideas in Gov. David Ige’s “blueprint” for education, which envisions a school system that better prepares students for an innovation- driven economy and better supports teachers while empowering school leaders and targeting resources at the school level.

“I like to empower leaders at various levels to really innovate, so I’m excited that there is this mindset around doing the work that way, but now we need to figure out what that looks like,” Ki­shimoto said, “because when we talk about innovation and empowerment, until it’s really well defined … it’s a vision statement.”

Unlike her past districts that required some schools to be completely overhauled, Kishimoto says Hawaii’s school system is not in crisis mode.

“Hawaii is a system that has been progressing, year over year, and so now the question is, What’s that next level of innovation work that we need to do, and also how do we get to the point where we close achievement gap areas?” she said.

Kishimoto said three areas she wants to focus on are school design, student voice and teacher collaboration.

“What this essentially is about is access to a quality education for every child,’” she said. “That’s very personal to a parent, that their child will have access to a great school and a great education program, to a great teacher and to great learning activities. So that’s the challenge for us: How do we provide that access to quality?

“The approach we’re going to take over the next three years is we’re going to go very deeply into how schools are designed; the voice that students have to give us feedback in terms of whether these schools are exciting to be a part of, whether they’re being engaged; and then the teacher collaboration … it’s about going to that next level to have teachers working together around how their schools are designed.”

Corey Rosenlee, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, said he’s hopeful teachers can have a prominent voice in the discussions.

“Under the previous administration there were too many top-down mandates, and the teachers’ voice was lost,” Rosenlee said. “We’re looking for a period where we’re going to value those closest to the children to hear their ideas for how we can improve our school system.”