Help star teacher help her students

In complete keeping with her character, an award-winning teacher who lives for her Kalakaua Middle School students is thinking of ways to devote her prize to them.

Michelle Kay, who teaches eighth-grade science at the Kalihi public school, won $25,000 as Hawaii’s only recipient this year of the Milken Educator Award, which recognizes excellence in education across the United States.

Kay will be escorting five of her students to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championships in Anaheim, Calif., next month, and her first thought was to use some of the winnings to help pay for airfare. That’s a generous impulse, but it would be even better if the community would step up to make this STEM adventure happen; check out http://www.kalakauamiddle.org/ for ways to help.

Kay gives her all to her students every day, and it shows in their success.

Congratulations to all!

It’s not always one or the other

Proposals for a management audit don’t always mean a solution’s in the offing, especially with longstanding problems that seemingly have been probed to death.

The Handi-Van issue may be one of those. Haven’t complaints about unreliable service been around for years? Moreover, the city officials say they’re trying out various ideas and want to give them a chance first. OK, but will those ideas help deliver better service?

Anyway, there seems to be no reason why the city can’t do both try out its fixes and entertain new ideas via an audit.

Let’s put our heads together on this.