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Kualapu`u School Celebrates 50 Years

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Row 1: Gladys Watanabe, Grace Kashiwamura, Leslie Tamura, Emily Mondoy Row 2: Frances Manuel, Ardath Robertson, Rachel Arakaki, Kathleen Cup Choy, Amy Fujimoto, Katherine Inouye, Yukiko Tamanaha Row 3: Sherman Napoleon, Sandra Wainui, Dorothy Slomchinski, Anna Lou Arakani, Lydia Ornellas, Lei Ah Loy, Tetsuo Kanemitsu

Kualapu`u School News Release

Tetsuo Kanemitsu, Lydia Ornellas, Jan O’Campo, Leslie Tamura, Gladys Watanabe, Grace Kashiwamura, Amy Fujimoto, Glady Brown, Joyce Waipa, Eleanor Urauchi, Emily Mondoy and Sherman Napoleon. Do these names sound familiar to you? What might they have in common?

Well, you may have guessed right! These are some of the original staff members of Kualapu`u Elementary School when the campus opened in 1966. These original staff members set the tone of excellence that Kualapu`u continues today.

Fifty years later, Kualapu`u continues to educate generations of families from the Kualapu`u, Ho`olehua, Kalae, Kalamaula and Manila Camp areas.

Kualapu`u School also has been a leader in educational trends which include being the first to adopt a “year-round” calendar, becoming a designated Elementary Hawaiian Immersion program for Molokai and converting to a public conversion charter school in 2005. Other accomplishments include adding a free pre-kindergarten in 2009, implementing an expanded learning time schedule in 2010, becoming the first accredited elementary school on Molokai in 2013, and recently renewing our accreditation for a full seven-year term.

If you were a student, parent, family member of a student who attended Kualapu`u School, or if you are or were a staff member at Kualapu`u School, we would like to know who you are.

Please provide your contact at surveymonkey.com/r/50thKualapuu. We are looking for names, school class photos, event pictures like May Day, school programs, notices, anything from the past, especially from the 1960s.

You can also contact Earline Iaea, a recent retiree of Kualapu`u after 41 years, at Earline@kualapuu.k12.hi.us. You can also share your photos with us by bringing your them to the school to be scanned.

Celebratory events will be posted on our new Kualapu`u School 50th Anniversary Facebook page.

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