Legendary teacher-leader Candy Suiso retires from Waianae High

When Candy Suiso and a fellow teacher decided to launch a video production program for students at Waianae High School in 1993, there were plenty of naysayers.

“They said, ‘Candy, it will never work — No. 1, they’re teenagers; No. 2, they’re Waianae High School teenagers; No. 3, they will rip you off,’” she recalls. “Those were the exact words.”

Suiso, a 1973 Waianae graduate, knew better. And she and her team have proved them wrong, many times over.

Searider Productions, the creative media program at Waianae High, became a leader in its field in Hawaii and beyond, winning hundreds of awards at the local, national and international levels. Its students and alumni are celebrated not just for their expertise and innovation, but their exuberance and commitment to mentoring others.

“Nothing feels better than accomplishing something that somebody said you can’t do,” Suiso said in an interview reflecting on that journey.

On Monday, at age 65, she retired from the state Department of Education, handing the reins of Searider Productions to John Allen III, a 1997 graduate of the program. He turned down six-figure TV job offers before he was 30 to keep working with the kids, alongside Suiso.

“It’s in good hands,” Suiso said. “He’s such an incredible educator.”

Suiso will shift gears to become executive director of the nonprofit Searider Productions Foundation, and focus on fundraising and finding new partners and projects.

“I’m not going away,” she said. “There’s so much work to do. … We are not a privileged community. These kids have to work hard for every single thing they have in their lives.”

Suiso started her teaching career in 1986 as a Spanish teacher, and eventually brought in a video camera so students could capture their fledgling efforts with the language. Seeing how much it engaged them, she and Norman Chock, a social studies teacher, got permission and funds from their principal to start Searider Productions in 1993.

They attracted 85 students that first year, packing more than 40 into a classroom. By 2002 the teenagers had landed their first commercial client, their work was so good. Any earnings are plowed back into the program.

“I’ve always been a real firm believer in project- based learning,” Suiso said. “We make learning relevant; we make it fun and really rigorous; and they are going to do it.”

Today Searider Productions has 250 students and six teachers offering a comprehensive program including videography, photo­- graphy, graphic arts and animation. Waianae has won regional and national Emmys and was chosen as the best monthly broadcast in the country for four of the last six years at the Student Television Network annual convention.

Just as Suiso envisioned, Searider Productions has become a pipeline for creative media stretching from elementary school all the way up to the university and into the workforce. And its students, teachers and alumni have inspired and mentored others across the state in developing their own award-winning video programs, including PBS Hawaii’s student news show “Hiki No.”

“Candy has something about her that is very, very inspiring,” said Hazel Sumile, a former principal at Waianae High. “I think one of the biggest impacts she made was giving the kids belief in themselves.”

“Her program started in a closet,” Sumile added, “and now she has her own complex. It’s just amazing.”

The Searider Productions collective includes “eduprises” producing T-shirts, banners, photography as well as services such as graphic design, websites, video and other media serv­ices. The income goes to the program and covering travel scholarships as well as tuition for college interns who work there.

With Suiso at the helm, Searider has forged partnerships with MA‘O Organic Farms and Makaha Studios and has enjoyed support from foundations including the James &Abigail Campbell Family Foundation, Ko Olina Charities and the Liliuokalani Trust.

“Candy is a legend and deservedly so,” said Chris Lee, founder and director of the Academy for Creative Media system at the University of Hawaii. “She’s made an enormous difference for her community and for our state.”

Lee, a former president of production for both TriStar Pictures and Columbia Pictures, said Searider Productions was an eye-opener for him, too.

“It’s been a North Star for me in terms of recognizing the talents of our most at-risk students,” Lee said. “They really became this aspirational facility and showed that those kids were not just as good as everybody else, they were better, because they were winning national and international awards.”

Suiso, who received a National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation in 1999, is a natural leader and cheerleader. When she lacked technical know-how, she knew just what to do.

“She’s really good at finding the right people, getting them on the bus and deciding what direction to go,” Allen said.

Suiso looks forward to more time with her three grandchildren and baking treats with the mangoes from her family’s famous orchard. But she remains as committed as ever to lifting up the community through Searider Productions.

“The idea of our program is that we have to share the knowledge, share what we have,” she said. “That’s how we’re going to make a better Hawaii. It’s a group effort.”

Whenever they take new students to their first national competition, Allen takes a moment to prepare them for the reaction they might get from others who see the word “Waianae” on their uniforms.

It’s a far cry from the negative stereotype that Suiso encountered years ago when founding the program.

“They are looking up to you as somebody who they admire,” Allen said he tells the kids. “They see the word ‘Waianae’ across your chests and they just love you guys.”