Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 12, 1 December 2001 — I Mua Kamehameha [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

I Mua Kamehameha

Trust retools to fulfill founder's vision

By Naomi Sodetani On Dec. 19, Kamehameha Schools students will gather at the crypt of Bernice Paua'hi Bishop to celebrate the school founder's birthday and to express * their gratitude for her enduring vision. Pauahi may well smile at the state of her estate these days, as it struggles to fulfill the last earthly desire of the 19th century leader in the 21st century. Onee wracked by internal turmoil and painfully public controversy, the institution onee known as the Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate — now fomally renamed Kamehameha Schools — embarks on a course of renewal and unprecedented expansion. Four years ago, the educational trust was accused of board impropriety and in 1999 the court mandated an overhaul of its internal structure in order to keep its tax-exempt status. After massive soul-searching and reorganization. the revamped trust has five new trustees and administraiors, a new governance structure and policies, and has opened two new

permanent campuses serving grades K-12 on Maui and Hawai'i. All signify how the trust is rebuilding itself from the eround up.

Hamikon I. McCubbin, hired in February 2000 to become the trust's first chief executive officer, boldly declares, "Our goal is to ensure a quality early education to all Hawaiian children within the next 15 years." Kamehameha Schools just wrapped

up a landmark two-year strategic planning process that drew on the mana'o of thousands of Hawaiians here and in the continental U.S. In January and February, the trust will present the resulting "Strategic Implementation Plan 2000 - 2015," at public meetings statewide. The plan proposes a far-reaching agenda. Resources will go to greatly expand access to early childhood education for children ages 0-4 statewide, and support communitybased educational and "eco-cultural" initiatives, literacy programs, vocational training, and youth leadership development. A major focus will be upgrading quality at public schools with large enrollments of Hawaiians, in order to reach 85 percent of the isles' native Hawaiian children served by the state Department of Education. About 25 DOE elementary schools statewide have 50 percent or more Hawaiians totaling over 6,500 children.

Kamehameha's current summer partnership with the DOE reaches about 30,000 students, McCubbin said. "Privatizing" certain public schools is a cost-effective way to offer academie opportunities to all Hawaiians. New funding will be leveraged through collaborations with the DOE, OHA, community groups, and other ali'i and non-Hawaiian trusts, said McCubbin. He credits the idea of building alliances to extend the trust's reach beyond the Kapālama campus to former-trustee Oswald Stender, now an OHA trustee. "I'm glad they're pursuing these partnerships and are on a good track," Stender responded. "I'm hopeful these programs will eome to light." McCubbin, a career educator who served as dean of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, stressed, "We See KAMEHAMEHA on page 13

u Our goal is to er>sure a quality early education to all Hawaiian children within the next 15 years. — Dr. Hamilton I. McCubbin ))

HONORING PAUAHI'S VISION: Dr. Hamilton McCubbin (center) is Kamehametxj's f*st CEO. At righf, students honor Princess Pauahi Bishop (above left) in a Founder's Day service at Mauna 'Ala, the royal mausoleum.

"U O" o Po ae ll °i I •• ® 8l I| C pū Sf? 2.? I II

KAMEHAMEHA from page 1

are not an endowment that happens to have an educational purpose; we are an cducational institution that happens to have an endowment."

That paradigm shift returns the trust to its founding purpose: to fulfill Pauahi's vision to educate and uplift her people as "good and industrious men and women," as expressed in her will that established the trust in 1887. In recent decades, the trust, with its vast land holdings, amassed great wealth in Hawai'i's inflated real estate market. At $6 hillion, it is the largest independent K-12 educational institution in the U.S., rivalling Ivy League endowments. But alumni and the general puhlie criticized that the Bishop Estate functioned more like a private investment firm. Trustees raked in $1 million-plus eommissions from land deals while making ad hoe decisions and cutting essential educational programs. In 1997, Stender publicly accused fellow trustees of breach of duty and sued trustee Lokelani Lindsay, igniting the controversy that prompted the board's resignation and the trust's reorganization. Antoinette "Toni" Lee, President of 0'ahu's Kamehameha Alumni Association said that, traumatic as it was, the upheaval was the catalyst for the estate's rebirth. "We're blessed to have outstanding trustees and an excellent CEO. We've eome a long way, and still have a long way to go, but things are pono now," she said. McCubbin agreed that "adversity honed and prepared us for what lies ahead: an exciting new era for Kamehameha as a dynamic and nurturing learning community committed to educaūonal excellence." ■

Community Meetings Kamehameha Strategic lmplementation Plan

O'ahu 1/10 KS campus, Elementary Dining Hall 1/14 Castle High School 1/15 Hale'iwa Elementary 1/28 Nānāikapono Elementary Maui 1/17 KS campus, Namahana Cafeteria Moloka'i 1/24 Kulana 'Ōiwi

Hawai'i 2/7 KS Kea'au campus, Multi-Purpose 2/8 Waimea Middle School 2/9 Keauhou Shopping Center, 10 a.m.-noon Kaua'i 2/19 King Kaumuali'i Elementary All meetings (except at Keauhou) will be held 5:3 -7:30 p.m. For more information, eall 523-6211 or email speg@ksbe.edu

Photo courtesy: Komehomeha Schools

EXPANDING PAUAHI'S VISION — Kamehameha's second campus in Pukaiani, Maui openeel in 1999. Presently sen/ing 152 students through grade 6, KS-Maui foresees enrolling over 1 ,100 students through grade 12 in the near future. A third permanent K-12 campus in Kea'au on the Big lsland opened in September 2001 .